Balancing costs

These are initiatives that we have implemented to improve the design of the GB network and to manage the delivery of changes that optimise availability and reduce constraints.

Costs associated with congested electricity networks make up a large proportion of balancing costs. Network planning and optimisation initiatives therefore have potential to make a significant impact on constraint costs. These initiatives are, and will continue to be, in alignment with industry, government, and public interest.

Some of these major initiatives include our Constraint Management Pathfinder (Intertrip Service), which generates about £200m per year in balancing cost savings, and the analysis and recommendations that we have contributed to the Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment (ASTI) framework, which is estimated to provide £2.1b in savings beyond 2025.

These are initiatives where we design and procure new services to balance the system, with greater competition at an optimised price.

We're always improving the market and service design in GB. As part of this, we've made many changes to our ancillary services. For example, the Response Reform added three new response products. And the Reserve Reform added three new reserve products. The introduction of these products has produced an estimated £33m in savings before 2025 and more than £165m in savings after 2025. These new response and reserve products also enable the decarbonisation of our network by securing losses on a lower inertia system and enabling new technologies to enter into these markets.

In an evolving energy industry, we want to ensure that we are most effectively using innovative solutions to drive down costs. We engage in many projects

Some of these include our innovation D Heat project with SSEN and the engagement and analysis that is produced for the frequency risk and control report, which includes an assessment of the magnitude, duration and likelihood of transient frequency deviations, forecast impact, and the cost of securing the system. This confirms which risks will or will not be secured operationally.

Balancing GB’s electricity system is an incredibly complicated task, with significant and difficult decisions being made from second-to-second. Our control room has fantastic capability in balancing the grid, but we are always looking to optimise our systems and processes to ensure that we are keeping up to date with the high standard that we like to set, and that we are adapting to industry changes.

Our Balancing Programme has many initiatives that will improve the capability and forecasting of our control room even further. There is room for improvement around real time metering protocols and requirements that would benefit the control room’s visibility over generators in Great Britain.