DSO sees increased competition in its flexibility markets

National Grid Distribution System Operator has awarded flexibility trades across 525 locations on its distribution network in the South West, Wales and the Midlands, procuring more than 18GWh of availability and 1GWh of scheduled utilisation.

Increased competition in these types of local flexibility markets, which incentivise consumers to change their energy demand or generation behaviour at times when the energy system is most in demand, delivers significant savings to the overall cost of the energy system which in turn can be shared with bill payers.

Cathy McClay, Distribution System Operator Managing Director, said, “The results of this trade round demonstrate we are building a growing flexibility market that is accessible, attractive and fit for the future. We've seen the number of flexible assets available to us double in the last year to more than 154,000. This has increased competition in our markets and resulted in awarded prices 30% lower than our maximum rate.

“Asset growth has been driven by the improved digital registration methods we’ve introduced which have enabled large volumes of domestic low carbon technologies access to our markets, such as electric vehicle charging points, heat pumps and batteries.

“This helps deliver more flexibility, with a lower carbon impact than supporting system peaks with gas or diesel generation. Across the trades we awarded, 92% of the volumes accepted were from such assets.”

One of the reasons for increased participation has been the DSO’s partnership with Piclo, which aims to simplify access for flexibility service providers into local distribution flexibility markets.

This has brought more than 250MW of capacity to the market. Cathy added: “Our efforts to provide flexibility service providers with greater choice on how they enter the distribution flexibility market are bearing fruit as we see an increase in the number of organisations registering to participate and the number of flexibility offers made to us.”

More details can be found in the DSO's latest Market Insights Report.

Although this round of trades has closed, NGED are continuing to procure further flexibility in their weekly market to make up any shortfalls. They publish the requirements for these here and encourage prospective flexibility providers to contact NGED.flexiblepower@nationalgrid.co.uk to find out how to get involved.