national grid ESO

  • Regulation and policy

    Capacity Market prequalification

    On 29 November, National Grid ESO in its role as EMR Delivery Body published the prequalification registers for the 2023-24 (T-1) and 2026-27 (T-4) Capacity Market (CM) auctions. In this week's 'Chart of the Week', we explore some of the highlights from the initial registers.

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    It’s My Birthday – Two years of Dynamic Containment

    October marks two years since the launch of the frequency response service, Dynamic Containment (DC). Its inception was the first in the roll out of new faster-acting frequency response services, accompanied by Dynamic Moderation (DM) and Dynamic Regulation (DR) earlier this year. In this week's 'Chart of the Week', we...

  • Power and gas networks

    CMP395 BSUoS cap

    On 21 September, the Final Modification Report for CMP395 was published by National Grid ESO (NG ESO). CMP395 seeks to cap the half-hourly Balancing Services Use of System charge (BSUoS) at £15/MWh over the winter period (1 October 2022 – 31 March 2023), with the deferred costs recouped in the...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Key highlights from our Balancing Services Forecast report

    In this week’s ‘Chart of the Week’, we will outline some of the key highlights from our latest report, to provide you with a flavour of the latest long-term trends for response and reserve.

  • Low carbon generation

    BSUoS charges: What goes up…

    Balancing Service Use of System (BSUoS) charges have continued to be the dominant driver of Third-Party Charge increases in recent months, with costs remaining elevated since last autumn. In this 'Chart of the week', we present a view of past monthly BSUoS charges and expectations for future costs on a...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    “Fixing” Balancing Costs

    The challenge of keeping the national transmission system balanced and stable in real-time is becoming increasingly challenging and expensive. Demand is becoming more unpredictable alongside a generation fleet that is both increasingly intermittent and increasingly distributed. Unsurprisingly, costs have risen. In this 'Chart of the week', we take a look...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Grid works hard for the money: an annual look back at BSUoS

    This weeks Chart of the Week takes a look at the costs incurred from balancing the electricity system over the last 12 months. The cost of all the actions and day-to-day operation of the electricity system are recovered through Balancing Services Use of System (BSUoS) charges. This changes in each...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Chart of the week | Back in from the cold: the resurrection of STOR procurement

    On 1 April National Grid ESO commenced procuring Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR) at the day-ahead stage, reviving the procurement of the STOR service since it was halted back in December 2019. The freeze in the procurement of firm STOR contracts and the eventual move to day-ahead procurement was driven...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Chart of the week | Wider Access: BM sees annual increase in smaller participants

    In recent years National Grid ESO’s Wider Access programme has rolled out several measures to support the entry of smaller and non-traditional participants into the Balancing Mechanism (BM). This 'Chart of the week' looks at the level of new entry into the BM over the past year. Specifically, it looks...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | Out with the old? Capacity Market Prequalification

    On 11 December 2020, the EMR Delivery Body (National Grid ESO) published the prequalification registers for the T-1 (2021-22) and T-4 (2024-25) Capacity Market (CM) auctions. In this 'Chart of the week', we explore the prequalification picture for the T-4 auction and what this could mean in terms of pricing...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Chart of the week | Grand unveiling: Dynamic Containment goes live

    At 11pm on 1 October National Grid ESO debuted its new frequency response service, Dynamic Containment (DC). This is the first in a suite of new faster-acting response services, designed to address significant frequency deviations when they occur on the transmission system.   The roll-out of this new post-fault response...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | Colours of the Rainbow: Green hydrogen and FES 2020

    On 27 July, National Grid ESO released the 2020 issue of its Future Energy Scenarios (FES), exploring different pathways towards GB’s 2050 net zero goal. A new set of scenarios were developed for this year’s FES, with three of the four (Consumer Transformation, System Transformation and Leading the Way) meeting...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Chart of the week | Critical Link: Western HVDC & wind in the BM

    On 10 January, the Western Link HVDC suffered a fresh unplanned outage. This consequently prompted Ofgem to investigate National Grid Electricity Transmission and Scottish Power Transmission over the cable's delivery and operation. Coinciding with this outage was record-high levels of wind generation in Great Britain. This generation from transmission connected...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | Get a load of this! Wind output in January 2020

    January 2020 was a groundbreaking month for renewables due to high wind performance. Consequently, National Grid ESO announced Great Britain's electricity system in January was the greenest on record. This week's Chart of the week discusses the record-breaking performance of wind. As well as its effect on onshore and offshore...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | Swing low: T-3 Capacity Market auction

    In this week's Chart of the week, we discuss the provisional results of the T-3 Capacity Market (CM) auction for Delivery Year 2022-23, published on Friday 31 January by the EMR Delivery Body (National Grid ESO). The clearing price was £6.44/kW/year, the lowest ever in a multi-year (T-4 or T-3) Capacity Market auction....