transmission

  • Commercial and market outlook

    ESB’s prototype; what can it tell us about the Transmission Access Reform?

    In May 2023, the Energy Security Board (ESB) published a consultation paper addressing transmission congestion. The paper proposed a voluntary congestion relief market (CRM) and a priority access mechanism. The priority access mechanism tends to incentivise generators to sit in non-congested areas to avoid further congestion. The CRM model also...

  • Commercial and market outlook

    Feast or famine? FCAS costs in South Australia

    Frequency Control Ancillary Service (FCAS) prices are highly volatile, at times resulting in short periods of extremely high FCAS cost. Three such events in recent history are the South Australian (SA) islanding events in November 2019, February 2020, and November 2022. During these events, FCAS costs in SA totalled $16...

  • Energy storage and flexibility

    Chart of the week | BFG: Big Frequency Game

    Since last Friday’s (9 August’s) power blackout there has been considerable interest in how National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) balances power demand and supply. Terms such as frequency, rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) and inertia have all gained in currency. This Chart of the Week shows the distribution of...

  • Low carbon generation

    Chart of the week | Bootstrap Bill: Western Link HVDC & BSUoS

    The Western Link HVDC, aka “Western Bootstrap”, a 2,200MW, £1bn transmission cable was built to help the UK manage the changing nature of energy production. It helps prevent transmission bottlenecks and increases flows into England and Wales by accommodating the increasingly high volume of power generated in Scotland from wind....