According to the distribution system operator (DSO) for London, East and Southeast England For distribution systems, consumers with electric vehicles with electric vehicles, heat pumps and batteries can participate in distribution, transmission and wholesale markets.
More than 4.4 GWh of flexibility has been delivered to the Electricity Network of Great Britain via the day head market of UK Power Networks since it was launched in April 2024. The distribution system operator (DSO) for London, East and Southeast England said that more than 150 “flexibility competitions” were held for the market in 12 months.
First tested in the end of 2023, the day-head marketing of UK Power Networks by running mini-tenders to offer the grid flexibility services for the next day. The market is split into 40 zones with bids accepted for each zone, if necessary, depending on the system requirements. Market participants must be in the relevant zone to offer in the flexibility auction.
The market for day -to -day flexibility is made possible, partly due to prediction models used by British energy networks to predict network use with high accuracy. UK Power Networks predicts system needs via an internal model produced by its DSO data team. A spokesperson for the company told PV -Magazine The model uses “established machine learning techniques” to make predictions based on historical use of the network and contains local weather forecasts of meteomaten. Predictions are updated every 30 minutes.
For consumers, the flexibility market allows households with electric vehicles, heat pumps and storage systems for battery energy to participate in distribution, transmission and wholesaler markets, according to UK Power Networks. This does not happen immediately. Instead, companies such as utilities, providers and aggregators for energy management system will offer on the market to offer a certain degree of flexibility. These companies then work together with their customers to change energy consumption if necessary, which can mean that automated controls on devices or through behavioral methods such as an E -mail or SMS message can mean. A spokesperson for UK Power Networks told PV -Magazine More than 90,000 assets actively participate in Flex Dispatch, including assets battery storage on the grid scale.
The Day-Ahead Flexibility Market works in addition to the two-year flex-to-spends of UK Power Networks. The company confirmed that an algorithm is performed every day to choose the most cost-efficient mix of long-term and day-head contracts. A spokesperson for the company said that UK Power Networks has consulted with market participants and found a mix of preferences, where some want tenders in the short term and others who prefer longer -term options, add that: “Also for network operators there is value in having trust months or years that is available as a short -term period.”
Increased flexibility is crucial for further solar and wind deployment in the United Kingdom, and the National Energy System Operator (NESO) for Great Britain projected a four-to-fifth increase in demand flexibility by 2030.
In a press release, the DSO head of flexibility markets of UK Power Networks Alex Howard said that the goal was to “open the flexibility market for as many potential providers as possible.”
“By offering providers more opportunities to enter into service and coordinating with Neso schedules, we help build a smarter, more adaptable energy network that supports our net zero future,” Howard said.
UK Power Networks’ Day-Ahead Flexibility Market is organized on the Localflex platform that is managed by the EPEX place of the European Power Exchange.
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