Western Power Distribution (WPD) has awarded 222MW of flexibility in its sixth round of procurement.
Its total volume of contracted flexibility now stands at 439MW, with the distribution network operator (DNO) lauding it as the highest among the UK DNOs.
To date, it has sought flexibility in 54 constraint locations across its network, although Ben Godfrey, WPD’s network strategy manager, said that only 11 of these have a “sufficient amount of excess and many are still under-fufilled”.
WPD’s strategy is to seek an excess of flexibility for each of its constraint locations to give increased security in the case of asset maintenance or faults.
“We will be continuing to seek providers to fulfil around 170MW of further flexibility for under-fulfilled locations in future rounds of procurement. In addition, we will continue to identify new constraint locations as part of our flexibility first commitment,” Godfrey said.
WPD is sourcing its flexibility through the Flexible Power platform, which was originally created by WPD using funding from the Network Innovation Allowance.
It has since expanded to include the flexibility requirements and procurement process of ScottishPower Energy Networks (SPEN), Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) and Northern Powergrid (NPg).
WPD plans to announce further flexibility locations on 11 Jan 2021 and is to open a subsequent procurement window on 8 Feb 2021.