ESO announces new DER specific ancillary service

National Grid ESO announced on Wednesday 9 August that, in collaboration with UK Power Networks (UKPN) and National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), it is delivering a new Distributed Energy Resource (DER) specific ancillary service, “MW Dispatch Service”. The new service will support the management of transmission network constraints by extending the options available to the ESO’s control room beyond those generators currently operating in the Balancing Mechanism. By enabling distribution network generators and batteries to play an active role in local constraint management, the new service will be more inclusive and potentially cheaper to implement than the Balancing Mechanism. UKPN and NGED are in the process of signing up customers to participate in this service which will start to operate over the coming months.