[UPDATE: National Grid ESO cancelled the Capacity Market Notice at 1:36pm.]
National Grid ESO has issued its first Electricity Capacity Market Notice (CMN) of the winter for this evening (3 December).
The operator posted the notice at 13:04 this afternoon for 17:30, as the capacity margin has fallen below the threshold set out in the Capacity Market Rules.
For the period, there is an expected transmission demand and therefore operating margin of 42,518MW. However, there is only 42,472MW of aggregate capacity of Balancing Mechanism (BM) units expected at that time.
While a CMN has been triggered, National Grid ESO said that margins are sufficient so that it is not anticipating issuing an electricity margin notice (EMN) unless anything significant changes.
Over the 2020/21 winter, National Grid ESO was forced to issue six EMN‘s as cold weather and tight margins led to shortfalls in capacity on numerous occasions. This tightness in the system also led to power price volatility, leading to record prices in the BM at the time.
In the operator’s Winter Outlook report – published in October following the release of an early view in July – it warned that the upcoming winter will be characterised by tight margins, stating at the time that it expected EMNs to return over the period. The EMNs issued in late 2020 and early 2021 were the first since 2016.
