Demand-side Response
In 2022, National Grid ESO (now NESO, the National Energy System Operator) launched the Demand Flexibility Service (“DFS”) as part of its winter contingency against a backdrop of concerns over security of supply in the wake of the Ukraine war. In its Winter Outlook for [...]
When the UK Government first announced its Smart Meter Implementation Plan in 2013, it hoped to see 30 million smart meters installed by 2020. In fact, this target was only reached in Q3 2022. Having extended the rollout to 2024 back in 2019, the [...]
This week National Grid ESO has activated its Demand Flexibility Service (“DFS”) for the first time. The scheme was used for 1 hour on Monday 23 January and 1.5 hours the following day. The coal reserves were also placed on standby each day, although [...]
Today National Gris ESO has officially launched the Demand Flexibility Service it announced in its Winter Outlook after Ofgem approved the scheme. It will run from today until 31 March 2023 allowing both businesses and households to be paid for reducing demand in times [...]
Today, National Grid ESO published its Winter Outlook for 2022/23, updating its position since the early outlook issued in July, which was widely seen as unrealistic. The position in July was that a capacity margin of 4.0 GW was expected, a small increase on [...]
In July 2020, National Grid published its 2020 Future Energy Scenarios (“FES-2020”), its annual update on the four scenarios describing what it sees as the “credible pathways for the future of energy over the next thirty years.” They are not intended to be firm [...]
Building on the recent development of local flexibility markets, a couple of domestic demand-side response ("DSR") trials are underway to explore whether households can provide flexibility to local electricity networks. The trials take different approaches: WPD's Sustain-H trial uses suppliers as intermediaries while in [...]
Almost out of the blue, last week, while all attention was on Brexit, came a decision from the General Court of the European Union that has led to the suspension of the GB Capacity Market. This means that all capacity payments are on hold, [...]
National Grid recently published a roadmap to widening access to the Balancing Mechanism to smaller, distributed assets and demand-side response. The increasing de-centralisation of the electricity system, along with the growth in intermittent generation, is making the task of balancing the system more challenging [...]
In recent weeks, much has been made of the fact that coal has dropped out of the merit order for days at a time. While much of the commentary is around trying to prove that the system can run just fine without dirty thermal [...]