National Grid ESO announced a Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) test today (31 January) between 17:30 and 18:00, following yesterday’s test (30 January) which took place between 09:00 and 10:00.
This week’s tests will be the 10th and 11th respectively after the test scheduled to go ahead on 24 January was called off due to changing capacity. This was replaced by a live event on the same day to take place between 16:30 and 17:30 and requiring a total of 604MW.
Last week the National Grid ESO announced its first Live DFS event on 23 January, which ran from 17:00 and 18:00 requiring 323MW in the first half an hour and 336MW in the second.
Following this, it ran a live event on 24 January between 16:30 and 18:00, with 274MW required for the first half an hour, 330MW for the second and 341MW for the final half an hour.
These have broadly been seen as a success, with households up and down the country participating.
Case study: OVO customers awarded over £23,000 over live events
Energy supplier OVO joined DFS back in November, offering its customers a minimum of £1 for every kWh shifted below their personal target during the service events.
According to the company, its been a success with their customers, with George Penman, director of energy propositions, OVO commenting:
“We’re pleased to already see rewarding results from our customers’ efforts in making small but significant changes to the way they consume energy. We know that winter is going to be a challenging time for many, so relieving that pressure where we can, and supporting our customers has never been more important. We must continue to pioneer innovative flexibility schemes, rewarding both people and the planet.”
Over the first live even on Monday 23 January, OVO saw 7,989 customers taking part with a total of 2,834kWh energy shifted. This led to customers receiving £8,500 in total, with the highest earning participant making £22.41 in credit for one hour of energy shifted
During the second live test on Tuesday 24 January, 9698 customers took part, collectively shiftin 4,800kWh of energy in total.
Customers were rewarded with £14,180 in total, with the highest earning participant making £31.47 in credit for the 90 minutes of energy shifted.
In addition, 1.27tons of carbon has been saved since the trial commenced by OVO customers.
DFS was launched on 1 November after being set out in ESO’s Winter Outook report in October 2022 and a now has 26 DFS providers in total playing into the service. The scheme will run a maximum of 12 tests for participants by March 2023 according to the ESO, making this week’s some of the final of the winter.
The first five tests, ran on 15 November, 22 November, 30 November, 1 December and 12 December saving over 780MWh of real and projected demand.
Following this, the sixth and seventh tests took place on 20 and 23 of December respectively. Moving into 2023, the ESO ran tests on 17 January and 19 January, making up the eighth and ninth tests.
In total the DFS tests have procured over 1.5GWh of capacity.
