Networks-12

Business Need

Against a background of reduced emissions from production of electricity, secure, stable operation of the GB system still needs to be maintained and the cost of balancing services has increased from £427 million in 2005/6 to £3.1 billion in 2021/22. Of this, £845 million was for response, reserve, reactive power and black start, services that, in principle, could be provided from within SPR’s existing portfolio, augmented by new assets such as batteries. The size of the market shows the potential for even small gains within it to provide significant additional revenue.

Key partners

The solution

There are clear opportunities for wind farms to provide certain ancillary services, particularly services such as dynamic regulation and moderation which do not require proactive constraint to hold an overhead of generation. The work in this project illustrated that there was a market opportunity for SPR’s wind portfolio to increase future participation in ancillary service provision which would enhance overall system security as well as increasing the financial revenue of existing and future wind assets. Wind turbines could also potentially provide other system support such as frequency regulation, synthetic inertia and rapidly available generation reserve but would require significant incentives from the System Operator for this to be financially viable.

Business benefits

Key findings:

  • There is a synergy between when dynamic support services are required, and times when wind generators are best placed to provide these services.
  • When electricity prices are negative there is a significant increase in procurement prices for dynamic moderation and regulation high services.
  • A wind turbine with a modern controller should be able to provide Dynamic Regulation or Moderation services, and with some modification, could respond quickly enough to also provide Dynamic Containment.

Industry quotes

The Networks‐12 project, which delved into Ancillary Services, has yielded numerous insightful discoveries for Scottish Power Renewables, stemming from case studies focused on the balancing mechanism and Ancillary Service markets. Additionally, the University of Strathclyde contributed significant insights into operational strategies during periods of negative or zero pricing.

Ryan Ward, SP Renewables