The National Grid opened its tender for the modest 319MW demand-side balancing reserve (DBSR) capacity in June this year. Its plans to balance supply and demand for this winter came under pressure following a string of high-stake unplanned outages.
Companies including Tata Steel and Flexitricity have been contracted to reduce demand on the national power grid between peak demand hours of 16.00 to 20.00 local time, but National Grid needs to take further measures to combat a 3GW-plus hit to supply margins due to the outages.
As a result, the grid operator announced plans in early September to guard against the heightened risk of blackouts through a precautionary tender process for Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) for an undisclosed amount of capacity. These contracts will be announced before the end of the month and ahead of the National Grid’s official winter outlook report expected around mid-October, a spokesman confirmed.
The need for additional balancing tools to help the UK balance supply and demand for winter power came earlier than expected due to sudden unexpected capacity losses including the fire-damaged Ferrybridge coal-fired power plant and four of EDF Energy’s nuclear reactors which were taken offline due to safety concerns.
Previously, analysts predicted that the winter of 2015/16 would pose the greatest risk of blackouts as older plant are expected to come offline before newer capacity is ready to be deployed. For next year, the DBSR is expected to rise from just over 300MW to 800MW, with tendering for the SBR to open as soon as next month with a second round planned for next spring.
Senior manager of National Grid’s electricity market reform project Peter Bingham said the operator is “encouraged” by its latest demand-side contracting round, and that the “extra security these contracts provide is good value for consumers.”