A wider pool of energy generators can now be called upon to re-energise the grid in the event of partial or complete shutdown.
It comes after Ofgem approved a code modification proposal by the Electricity System Operator (ESO) to “provide greater robustness to the system through additional resilience and protection measures and provide additional measures to restore the system in the event of a partial or total shutdown”.
In particular, the change provides “opportunities to smaller embedded parties who traditionally would not have been able to participate in system restoration or defence activities”.
The regulator’s approval letter concludes that the code modification (GC0148) “gives participation opportunities to non-traditional defence and restoration service providers, therefore, providing greater competition in those markets”. These include renewable energy generators and small-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar panels and battery storage.
It builds on the ESO’s Distributed Re-Start Project which was established to encourage new providers of black start and restoration services.
The ESO’s proposal document adds: “The aim is not only to encourage new providers of black start services such as HVDC, wind, solar and storage, where historically transmission connected thermal generation has been used but more importantly the use of embedded generation to start sections of the distribution network which can be used to re-energise and contribute to the overall black start strategy which overall would enable the total system to be established, more quickly.”
Speaking during a webinar last year, ESO procurement and compliance workstream lead Roop Phall said that the proposed change was to “harness the growth of DER services”.
She added: “We know that they are the future and we know that they can play a pivotal role in restoration.
“We see our proposal as supplementing traditional restoration services and not replacing them.
“It will be a long time before all the traditional restoration services can be properly closed down and replaced by the distribution network. It will be a long journey to get there.”