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National Grid spent £2.4m balancing the grid on November 4 2015, when the first Notice of Inadequate System Margin (NISM) in three years was issued, a letter to the chair of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee has revealed.
The NISM was issued for the hours of 16.30 to 18.30, following a string of unplanned outages and an extended period of low wind. Committee chair Angus MacNeil asked for information about the costs incurred by the notice after the director of the UK System Operator at National Grid, Cordi O’Hara, appeared before the committee to explain what happened.
Responding to the request, O’Hara said that National Grid called on 200MW of interconnector capacity from Ireland and 43MW of Demand Side Balancing Reserve, costing £181,300 and £25,000 to £30,000 respectively. She didn’t detail how much it cost National Grid to call up roughly 400MW of Short Term Operating Reserve.
The overall cost of balancing actions on the day was £2.4 million, according to the letter, with £1.05 million of that spent during the NISM period. Ms O’Hara said by comparison the average daily cost for balancing actions in 2014/15 was £2.33 million.
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