Northern Powergrid issues call for flexibility

Northern Powergrid has issued a call for more than 82MW of flexibility across 19 locations in its licence area in the North East, Yorkshire and East Lincolnshire.

The distribution network operator said it intends to procure flexibility services in these locations out to the mid-2020s, starting with a tender in the middle of this year.

Northern Powergrid said the call is open to any interested customer, large or small, with the ability to reliably modify their generation or consumption of energy in real time.

As well as those situated in the specified locations, the company said it would also like to hear from customers across its licence areas that could provide flexibility services if further needs arise in the future.

Liz Sidebotham, commercial manager for new markets at Northern Powergrid, commented: “We know that decarbonising the UK’s electricity, heating and transport sectors will mean additional load on the electricity system and more intermittent renewable generation. Flexibility from our customers can be part of the solution to cost effectively manage these changes and the impact on our network.

“The commitment in our 2023-2028 business plan to a ‘flexibility first’ approach means that we will always seek to identify flexibility services as an option ahead of building significant new electricity network infrastructure.

“We expect flexibility services to grow and become an increasingly important tool in how we manage the electricity network as the low- carbon transition accelerates with technologies such as electric cars, heat pumps, batteries and renewable generation changing the way our customers generate and use electricity.”

Speaking to Utility Week last year, Northern Powergrid’s policy and markets director at the time, Patrick Erwin, said the company was being “careful” not to “overpay” for flexibility, whilst suggesting some DNOs may be procuring more than they actually need.

He said the firm had actually halted its previous flexibility tender after the expressions of interested indicated that none of the flexibility on offer would be cost-competitive with their own network solutions.

“We’re trying to do the right thing,” he explained. “We are absolutely flexibility first but what we’re not going to do is overpay for flexibility just to have a high number. That’s maybe a bit of a differentiator.”

Erwin said history of heavy industry in the region meant the DNO had more spare capacity on its high voltage networks than there was in other parts of the country, although he expected the need for flexibility on its low-voltage networks to emerge as it headed into the RIIO ED2 price controls beginning in April next year.