More than 2.2m sign up to Demand Flexibility Service

More than 2.2 million households and businesses have so far signed up to participate in this winter’s Demand Flexibility Service.

For comparison, over 1.6 million households and businesses signed up to the inaugural service last winter.

The Electricity System Operator (ESO) has held nine total events this winter – seven test events and two live events on 29 November and 1 December.

The ESO said participants reduced their electricity demand by 2,507MWh over the events held in November and December – enough to power six million homes for an hour – and received more than £9.3 million in “pounds, points and prizes” for doing so. The average demand reduction over the two live events, each lasting one-and-a-half hours, was 497MWh.

A total of 43 providers, including suppliers and aggregators, have signed up to this winter’s service. The ESO will continue holding test events until it comes to an end in March.

According to the ESO, customers reduced their demand by more than 3.3GWh over the 20 test and two live events last winter, although Octopus Energy’s Centre for Net Zero recently suggested that this figure may be “too optimistic”.

Claire Dykta, director of markets at National Grid ESO, said: “The Demand Flexibility Service continues to grow from strength to strength. Households and businesses up and down the country are demonstrating their continued interest and commitment to electricity flexibility and are reaping the rewards for their participation.”

The ESO said a big change to the service for 2023/24 has been the introduction of within-day, as well as day-ahead, test notifications to ask consumers to adjust their electricity usage at shorter notice.

Another change has been the removal of the within-day adjustment to consumers’ baseline consumption levels which, as reported by Utility Week, allowed some consumers to game the system by deliberately increasing their consumption in the lead up to events.

The ESO has additionally sought to introduce more price competition to test events by removing the £3/kWh price floor for events in which forecast volumes exceed 1.25GW, starting at the beginning of this year. This Guaranteed Acceptance Price applied to all of the test events in November and December.

Speaking during a Utility Week event last year, a senior figure from National Grid said the Demand Flexibility Service is “a means to an end” from which the ESO will eventually “step back” as new routes emerge for consumers to provide flexibility to the power grid.

In related news, National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) has announced it is seeking demand reduction from domestic customers across more than 1,400 new locations next winter as part of its LV Sustain flexibility service.

The service pays consumers via suppliers and aggregators to reduce their consumption during the demand peak on weekday evenings (4pm to 8pm). NGED said its latest expansion means the service is now open to around 176,000 customers across its low voltage network. The distribution network operator said the service could allow it to defer £60 million of network reinforcements over the winter of 2024/25.

Helen Sawdon, flexibility commercial manager at National Grid, said: “LV Sustain is making participation in distribution network flexibility more accessible for a wider range of customers. Households are becoming increasingly more active in flexibility services and our offering is providing a simple, easy to understand service that is delivering benefits to households, suppliers/aggregators and National Grid.”

Suppliers and aggregators wishing to participate have until 23 February to register and can do so either through the independent marketplace Piclo Flex or NGED’s own Market Gateway platform.