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National Grid Electricity Distribution is introducing “short term trades” in a bid to attract more customers to its flexibility programme.
The short term trades will be procured on a weekly basis, with customers paid for shifting their energy usage at times of constraint.
The distribution network operator (DNO) said that reducing the time between procurement and delivery will give more customers the chance to participate in the flexibility offering.
Helen Sawdon, National Grid flexibility lead, said: “Short Term Trades will be procured on a weekly basis, with the availability and price agreed each week before delivery, allowing opportunities for new flexible assets to enter the market as soon as they become eligible.
“In addition, by reducing the amount of time between procurement and delivery, we believe we’ll see a greater level of successful participation from intermittent assets that are unable to commit to delivery over longer timescales.”
A total of 433 households with assets like EV chargers or home battery storage are set to participate in flexibility events this winter.
National Grid estimates that there are potentially three million customers in areas where flexibility services are in operation.
Suppliers and aggregators must be registered through National Grid’s Market Gateway platform which makes it easier for businesses to sign up to become Flexibility Service Providers (FSPs).
National Grid distribution system operator director Ben Godfrey said: “We know from stakeholder feedback over the last 18 months that flexibility needs to be more accessible to a broader market. By creating the Market Gateway and launching a suite of products to procure flexibility over different timeframes, we have been able to open up the market to more businesses and domestic customers.
“The Market Gateway is an online tool that reduces the administrative burden of gaining a contract, registering assets and trading services. It standardises and digitises the commercial and technical registration processes, enabling a level playing field for suppliers, aggregators and marketplaces to develop flexibility markets on our behalf.”
Under a “fairly moderate” scenario, the ESO expects around 1GW of capacity to be made available through the DFS. In a more optimistic outlook, the ESO thinks up to 2GW could be made available.
The moderate estimate of 1GW is triple the 350MW made available through the DFS last winter, while the ambitious 2GW target is six times as much.
In a separate trial, UKPN is looking at how electric vehicles parked in long-stay car parks can be used to provide flexibility.
The network operator suggests that 4.3GW of flexible electricity could be unlocked by filling up electric cars’ batteries in long-stay car parks when energy is cheap and demand is low and injecting power back into the system at peak times.
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