Demand-side response aggregator Restore has agreed a deal with National Grid to provide 25MW of demand turn-up (DTU).
The scheme pays companies to increase power consumption in order to help balance the grid – and is set to become increasingly important as demand falls and generation from wind and solar increases.
The system operator predicts all-time lows for power demand on the transmission system this summer due to the boom in distribution-connected solar PV.
As a result, Grid may have to issue emergency instructions to inflexible generators, whom it will pay to stop exporting power onto the system, as well as call on firms to increase demand.
National Grid director Cordi O’Hara recently urged businesses to consider the DTU service. Grid seeks 300MW of provision but as of last month, had only contracted 200MW, despite several calls for expressions of interest.
Restore’s Louis Burford said businesses should rethink their demand-shifting strategy as the landscape for service provision had changed significantly in recent years.
“The market has transformed significantly,” said Burford. “Many industrial and commercial consumers have not moved away from traditional programmes like short term operating reserve (STOR) and frequency control by demand management (FCDM).”
That suggests some firms are earning revenues “far below those which are now available” and suffering greater business disruption than necessary, he continued.
Restore also manages 46MW of firm frequency response (FFR) for National Grid and won contracts totaling 94.2MW in the 2017 capacity market.
Restore is one of the sponsors of Energyst Media’s free Demand Side Response conference, held in London on 8 September.
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