The “UK’s first” independent Distribution System Operator (DSO) – established by UK Power Networks (UKPN) in April 2023 – is set to deliver over 400MW of additional electricity capacity.
UKPN awarded contracts to distributed energy resources and aggregators to increase demand or turn down supply during excess power for the first time, it said. The tender attracted over 1,000MW of flexible capacity against requirements of 426MW.
The latest tender – following on from December 2022 – saw 1,037 sites bid for flexibility, a significant increase from the 28 sites that bid in the company’s first flexibility tender in 2018.
“This will be the decade when net zero becomes real for many of our customers; that means millions of new electric vehicles, heat pumps and other low carbon technologies like domestic solar and batteries. The DSO will make sure we are ready to accommodate that change, while keeping costs down for bill payers,” said Sotiris Georgiopoulos, DSO director at UK Power Networks.
“Tapping into customer flexibility means we can connect more renewable energy and low carbon technologies to the network. Our independent DSO, overseen by a board of industry experts, aims to give this new and fast-growing market confidence in the transparency of our investment decisions.”
UKPN’s independent DSO was established in April 2023 and has committed to using flexibility to deliver capacity to save consumers £410 million over the next five years.