The UK national energy system operator (NESO) has set four “short term” actions to make a “meaningful impact” on skip rates, in response to an open letter from the Battery Storage Coalition.
NESO convened the round table with energy sector leaders representing battery owners, developers and investors and seeks to demonstrate its commitment to transparency and collaboration.
First, it will release an updated dispatch algorithm in the control room, promising that from the start of November it will have “critical” new resource start in the control room. By the middle of November, it will publish an LCP Delta definition, methodology and full report on skip rates and by the end of November, NESO said it will deploy new transparency tools.
The group has committed to reconvening in December to review progress.
The Battery Storage Coalition’s letter criticised skip rates—the frequency with which the system operator skips over batteries to use more expensive methods in the Balancing Mechanism (BM)—claiming that skipping batteries holds back investment and drives up consumer bills.
Data collected by the battery storage developers shows that some battery sites are skipped over during constrained periods 90% of the time. NESO’s response states that it “hugely values” the role batteries play in securing and balancing the power system; this month, battery energy storage systems (BESS) stepped up to maintain grid frequency when two major interconnectors tripped.
In response to industry feedback, NESO also committed to further work on a number of code modifications, to review and clarify the ‘30-minute rule’ and to review balancing reserve and wider reserve procurement strategies.
The 30-minute rule was implemented in March this year to change how BESS communicates energy availability in the BM. The change, from a ‘15-minute rule’, is meant to allow batteries to be dispatched for longer.
NESO said it is committed to a “level playing field” for all technologies within the market.
In the run up to the election, Solar Energy UK called on the government to set a target of 30GW of energy storage capacity by 2030. NESO states that it forecasts a need for “four or five” times the capacity we have today by 2030, which would total around 15-20GW (based on the UK’s current capacity of 3.9GW).
The full version of this article is available on our sister site, Current±.
