Western Power Distribution (WPD) has awarded a further 222MWs of flexibility as it concluded its sixth round of flexibility procurement.
To date, WPD has sought flexibility in 54 constraint locations across its network in England and Wales totalling 374MW. This latest procurement brings its total volume of contracted flex to 439MW. This may look as though WPD has fulfilled its flexibility needs, but as WPD’s network strategy manager Ben Godfrey describes, there is still more work to do.
Ben commented, “Our strategy has always been to seek an excess of flexibility in each of our constraint locations to ensure we can meet the network’s needs. Having a pool of available providers offers us increased security, for example in the event of a provider’s unavailability due to asset maintenance or fault.
“While this round has been hugely successful, in reality only 11 of the 54 zones have a sufficient amount of excess and many are still under-fulfilled. We will be continuing to seek providers to fulfil around 170MW of further flexibility for under-fulfilled locations in future rounds of procurement. In addition, we will continue to identify new constraint locations as part of our flexibility first commitment.”
WPD uses the Flexible Power platform to signpost and operate its flexibility requirements. Earlier this month SP Energy Networks, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and Northern Powergrid announced they are collaborating on Flexible Power to signpost and operate all of their flexibility requirements, meaning prospective flexibility providers now have a direct path to participate in flexibility on multiple networks.
