National Grid ESO (ESO) yesterday (12 December) launched the first stage of its Open Balancing Platform set to “unlock new levels of precision for the ESO control room.”
Intentions to form the Open Balancing Platform were given in the ESO’s conclusions for its Net Zero Market Reform project, revealed in July 2023, including setting its launch date for this December.
The new system will give ESO control room engineers pre-selected lists of units to choose from in order to meet a network requirement. Reducing the number of manual instructions required from the control room is set to greatly reduce the time taken to instruct balancing mechanism units.
This optimisation will enable control room engineers to send hundreds of instructions to smaller Balancing Mechanism Units, allowing battery storage “play a more active role in balancing the network.”
“The Open Balancing Platform is critical to delivering the balancing system we need to meet net-zero. Further diversification of generation assets, both in technologies and size require that we deliver more flexible solutions to increase efficiencies and competition, to support the delivery of our zero carbon ambition and to create savings for consumers,” said Craig Dyke, director of system operations at ESO.
“By enabling transformation in our balancing capabilities, the ESO can continue to deliver world class reliability and security, both now and in the future.”
Later stages of the Open Balancing Platform will commence across 2024 and 2025 to involve a wider range of technologies into the Bulk Dispatch process, whilst also transferring existing response and reserve services from the Ancillary Services Dispatch Platform to the new platform.
The ESO’s ultimate aim is for the Open Balancing Platform to replace the existing Balancing Mechanism and the Ancillary Services Dispatch Platform by 2027.
