National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) is offering its first demand turn up, generation turn down contracts to enhance its flexibility services for the winter.
The new contracts, aimed at owners or operators of flexible energy generation assets that can be called upon to turn up demand or turn down generation within a day’s notice, are available at three locations in the South West, South Wales and the Midlands, and total 2,811MWh.
NGED is also looking for further demand turn down and generation turn up flexibility agreements at 800 other locations, with some aimed at domestic customers with EV chargers, battery energy storage systems (BESS) or heat pumps. The window to bid for these flexibility contracts is now open and will close on Monday 4 November.
Helen Sawdon, NGED’s DSO flexibility commercial manager, said: “Our new demand turn up, generation turn down opportunities will help match the volume of energy demand with the volume of energy being generated, incentivising energy consumers to use electricity at times when it’s in abundance—for example, on a sunny day when there’s lots of solar generation. We’re trialling this in three locations this year and hope to roll it out wider in the future.”
Winter flexibility looks different
In June, National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (DSO) announced that it would be winding down the Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) that it had previously used to help balance the grid at peak times. The previous version of the DFS worked by incentivising households to use less power during peak times. Consumers could be rewarded with money off their bills if they used less power during pre-determined periods.
This year, the ESO has predicted that this winter, it will be able to call on enough electricity during a cold spell to no longer require the DFS to help balance the grid. However, the ESO has announced that it plans to expand an evolved version of the DFS that will operate all year round to balance the grid during the highest demand times.
Data from the Energy Network Association (ENA), released this July, revealed that Britain is the biggest flexibility market in the world, with network operators tendering a record high of 6.4GW of flexibility capacity in 2023.
A recent Current± blog explored the importance of demand side flexibility in the UK. You can read it here.
