Western Power Distribution (WPD) has released a new report setting out its proposed decisions between reinforcement and flexibility for the management for various constraints across its license areas and the reasoning behind them.
Going forward, the company said its Distribution Network Options Assessment (DNOA) will be updated every six months.
“We’ve set out to give clear indications and legitimacy to the market by showing our thinking about flexibility decisions,” distribution system operation manager Ben Godfrey.
“This includes looking ahead by using our Distribution Future Energy Scenarios, which predict future demand, but also looking back to the outcomes of previous flexibility tenders.
He continued: “As a result, the DNOA shows the areas where we expect constraints and whether we think we will manage those constraints through flexibility, reinforcement or a combination of the two.
“Our aim is to build market confidence. Although we only provide procurement contracts of between one and four years, the DNOA shows our longer-term thinking. Where flexibility is a more economic option than reinforcement, market participants will be able to read the signals contained within the DNOA.”
WPD said its decisions on constraint management have been made using the Common Evaluation Methodology developed by the Energy Networks Association as part of its Open Networks project.
Click here to read the report.