Further flexibility success for WPD following latest tender

We have awarded flexibility contracts totalling 119MW following the completion of our latest procurement round.Contracts were awarded to 35 participants operating a total of 87 assets across all 17 of our Constraint Management Zones (CMZs).

Thirteen of the awarded zones have requirements over the upcoming winter season; the remaining four will be required over summer 2020. All of the awarded flexibility zones have ongoing requirements forecast out to 2024.

Network Strategy Manager Ben Godfrey said: ”The results of this latest procurement round show a large increase in the amount of participants, proving confidence in DSO flexibility markets is growing and it’s evident that more providers are able to participate confidently in distribution flexibility.

”At WPD, we have put considerable effort into developing these new markets; for example, this is the first procurement round in which we have offered flexibility providers the option of securing a longer contract length of up to four years. We saw an equal split of preferences with 50% of respondents requesting longer term contracts while the other 50% chose one-year contracts.

“Feedback from our recent engagement with stakeholders identified the benefits that variable contract lengths can offer to different types of providers and we’re pleased we were able to facilitate this within this round.”

This brings our total contracted flexibility to date up to 123MW. We will release a full report detailing the procurement results on 21 October.

We plan to announce further flexibility locations in the New Year, and will open a subsequent procurement window on 3 February 2020. Interested parties can register for updates here to be notified as soon as these are released.