Autumn Tender 2023

For all of these locations we are seeking active power services. The flexibility could be provided through any of generation turn up, demand turn down, or battery discharge. Flexibility can be provided by a single DER, or by an aggregator of multiple DERs or of multiple CERs.  

For a party to provide flexibility services, the flexibility assets must be located in a flexibility zone. We have implemented Piclo so you will be able to self-serve to check or confirm whether your flexibility asset is indeed served by the primary substation i.e. whether it is within a flexibility zone and therefore able to provide services. In advance of Piclo going live, please do contact us with the details of locations where you have flexibility to offer so that we can confirm whether your asset is in a flexibility zone. Please email us at flexibility@northernpowergrid.com including information on MPAN and/or full postcode. 

Who could provide flexibility services?

Flexibility markets are open to parties with the ability to modify their energy consumption and/or production of energy. This could be residential consumers providing flexibility via a third-party aggregator, or business customers who can either provide the service directly or via a third-party aggregator 

Consumer Energy Resources (CER) are residential consumer-owned assets, and their primary purpose is to provide a non-energy system service e.g., heating a home or transportation; but they can also control their operation to provide flexibility services. Examples of CERs that could provide flexibility services includes EV charging, heat pumps, white goods, and small-scale batteries. 

Distributed Energy Resources (DER) are business owned assets, and their primary purpose can be to provide energy system services or to provide business services.  Examples of DERs that could provide flexibility services include power generators, large users of electricity who can manage demand from their equipment or buildings, electricity storage operators, and commercial EV fleet charging. 

For a party to provide flexibility the flexibility assets must be located in the relevant position on the electricity distribution network. This includes connection voltage level as well as geographic location. 

The flexibility asset(s) should be controllable and non-intermittent so that flexibility can be reliably provided in response to dispatch signals from Northern Powergrid. 

Details of flexibility requirements and locations

Our flexibility requirements vary by location. The table below sets out the locations, zones, capacity requirements and time windows where we are interested in contracting flexibility services. We are seeking active power services in these demand-constrained locations so the flexibility could be provided through any of: generation turn up, demand turn down, or battery discharge. Flexibility can be provided by a single DER or by an aggregator of multiple DERs. We are seeking 2 year contracts with the option to extend for a further 2 years.

All of these factors will influence which customers may be interested in providing flexibility services.

We will be procuring through a competitive tendering process. However, there is a ceiling on what we would pay in any zone, as set out in the table below. Please note that payment is based on a utilisation fee in £/MWh. The availability fee will be zero.

A portfolio of providers could together deliver the full flexibility requirement, and so we are interested in receiving bids even if bidders are able to deliver only part of the required capacity for part of the time window at a location.

Flexibility Needs - HV

Flexibility Needs- LV