Industry members have just ten working days to respond to a draft report on the future charging regime for balancing services.
Regulator Ofgem decided to launch a Balancing Services Charges Task Force in November with the aim of providing analysis for decisions on the future direction of BSUoS, which recover the costs of the balancing actions taken by the Electricity System Operator (ESO) on the GB transmission network.
The task force says BSUoS charges do not provide any useful forward-looking signals, because charges are hard to forecast, complex, volatile, less material than other market signals and applied equally too all users. The regime raises costs because it means market participants include a risk premium in their costs. Also, some parties react to small signals in a way that is not beneficial. It concluded that the costs included within BSUoS should all be treated on a cost-recovery basis.
Read the full report.
Responses are required by 17 May 2019 at 17:00, and a final report will be submitted to Ofgem on 31 May.
A two-hour webinar will be held on the consultation at 10am on 7 May, register here.
More information and details of how to respond here.