Northern Powergrid has provided more details of its plan to procure flexibility for use next winter and is seeking expressions of interest (EOIs) from potential providers.
The company is seeking flexibility assets of 100kW or more to deliver up to 12.5MW of combined capacity for next winter in nine areas. It wants to hear from businesses or groups of customers that are able to flex their generation when required. This could include assets, such as small scale peaking plant or renewables co-located with storage. The company is equally interested in hearing from large demand customers that can reduce or shift their electricity demand.
Interest is initially sought from network users in nine locations across the region. After carrying out network assessments, Northern Powergrid identified substations located in Sheffield, Bridlington, Newcastle, Goole, Scunthorpe, Hull, Dewsbury, York and Huddersfield
The company is encouraging operators with assets located in these areas to register them on the Piclo Flex dashboard https://picloflex.com/dashboard
For a site to provide flexibility it must be located in the relevant position on the network – this includes voltage level and geographic location (see table below).
The asset should be able to reliably adjust its demand import (against a predetermined baseline) or generation export safely by 100kW and manage this for the duration of a contracted window. If assets are being bid in as an aggregated portfolio, the minimum portfolio size should be 200kW. Each site must have minute-by-minute metering. Should the site provide the service, this must not trigger the participant to breach any other contractual agreement the site may have in place.
Andrew McKenna, commercial development manager at Northern Powergrid, said: “The need for flexibility is expected to grow over time, with increased intermittent renewable generation, growing numbers of EVs and changing consumer behaviour. This is the first stage of an increasingly collaborative and customer-centric approach to delivering our core electricity delivery service.”