British wind farms are now solving the same problems they create for the grid operator — and lowering consumer bills in the process.
With fewer and fewer fossil generators left in the U.K. generation mix, and more and more renewables, the network is under strain. But more than 100 large wind farms are now providing grid services to balance out the variable nature of renewables.
A new “power-available” signal gives National Grid ESO visibility into all participating wind farms, allowing the grid operator to see how much they can contribute to providing grid stability. This was the final piece of the puzzle required to enable wind farms to participate in those flexibility markets.
All this is part of National Grid ESO’s plans to be able to support a fossil-fuel-free network by 2025. The latest solution comes just in time. The grid operator has been forced to curtail wind power in huge volumes this summer due to a lack of fossil-fuel generators to provide essential flexibility. The cost of balancing the grid over the summer has more than doubled this year to an anticipated £826 million ($1.03 billion).
Barnaby Wharton, director of future electricity systems at RenewableUK, said the industry had to agree on a standardized means of delivering the signal. Once that was done, all that was left was the installation of the necessary systems at the grid control room to actually be able to read it.
That’s easier said than done, as many of the developers and asset owners had been developing their own solutions for accessing the flexibility markets. In 2012, a proposal was made to change the grid code to include the development of a power-available signal. That proposal was settled in 2015. Since then, the working group, including the major wind asset owners, trade group RenewableUK, National Grid ESO and regulator Ofgem, has steered the effort to develop the live data feed itself.
When that work began, all new wind projects were also ordered to ensure their hardware was future-proofed for participation from 2016 onward. That meant a pipeline of available capacity has been building while the regulatory and market changes were underway. With several gigawatts of offshore wind coming on during that period, the available capacity is substantial.
Now, all the pieces of the puzzle have aligned with firm frequency response market contracting on a day-ahead basis. The lower limit for participation has also been dropped from 10 megawatts to 1 megawatt.
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