Large energy users and aggregators who want to be paid to use power this summer have to submit their tenders by 5pm Friday.
National Grid expects to have to manage excess generation of 3-5GW during the summer of 2017. The Demand Turn-Up scheme, in which customers are paid to increase their power use, is one of the ways it plans to create ‘footroom’.
This year, National Grid is seeking Demand Turn-Up for the whole period of British Summer Time, from 27 March to 28 October. It will offer payments when it calls on companies to turn up demand overnight and at weekends when usage would otherwise be too low – 23.30-8.30 and 13.00-16.00 in March, April, May, September and October, and slightly extended overnight (23.30 -9.00) in June, July and August.
Companies can offer either or both of availability for the entire period (by submitting a fixed tender by Friday) or flexible availability in response to a process in which National Grid will assess its requirements twice-weekly during the Demand Turn-Up period.
The Demand Turn-Up scheme ran as a pilot in 2016. During the pilot, National Grid contracted for 309MW of such capacity and called on providers 323 times. In response to feedback after the pilot, National Grid has reduced the minimum volumes of Turn-Up to be offered; allowed aggregators to deliver it from more, smaller sites; allowed multiple bids to be made for offer periods; and removed geographical restrictions on the sites involved.
Submissions should be sent in the tender submission template (found on the National Grid DTU webpage under ‘How To Participate’) via email to commercial.operation@
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