Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what criteria is used by National Grid ESO to determine acceptable levels of regional electricity system restoration capability.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Electricity System Operator (NGESO), has a legal obligation to have a capability to restore the electricity system in the event of a total or partial failure.
In line with historic expectations, NGESO has sourced and procured capability to achieve the restoration of 60% of national demand within 24 hours. This level of demand equates to the level required to run a stable, interconnected Electricity Transmission System, from which remaining demand can be restored.
This approach requires a certain number of self-starting generators to be available in each region and prioritises the restoration of supplies to other generators to maintain a broadly consistent rate of restoration across all GB regions.
The restoration approach is reviewed at least once every two years, to ensure that GB’s restoration capability keeps pace with all relevant technologies and the changes to the electricity system.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how essential electricity system restoration capability will be provided in a zero-carbon electricity system.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The electricity System Operator (National Grid ESO) has a legal license obligation to ensure that it has a restoration capability.
In order to ensure that this capability evolves to provide a safe and effective restoration as the electricity system continues to decarbonise and decentralise, NGESO is undertaking a project to develop and demonstrate new approaches to restore the electricity system from Distributed Energy Resources to increase competition in the market and deliver cost and carbon emission reductions.
BEIS will continue to monitor GB’s changing restoration capability alongside National Grid and Ofgem to ensure it remains robust and effective.
Asked by: Paul Sweeney (Labour (Co-op) - Glasgow North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the financial sustainability of retaining synchronous synchronous generation capability to provide restoration capability to the National Grid.
Answered by Chris Skidmore
The Electricity System Operator, (NGESO) has a legal obligation to provide a capability to restore the electricity system in the event of its total or partial failure.
Under a new regulatory framework introduced in 2017, NGESO is required to submit on an annual basis, a Restoration Strategy, which outlines how restoration will be achieved in the short, medium (one to three-year time horizon) and long-term (beyond three years), as well as a Procurement Methodology, which outlines how this approach will be delivered.
The Government regulator for gas and electricity markets, Ofgem, is responsible for considering these methodologies and determining whether these are sufficient, efficient and cost-effective.
In order to ensure that GB’s restoration capability evolves in line with the decarbonisation and decentralisation of the electricity system, NGESO is undertaking a project to develop and demonstrate new approaches to restore the electricity system from Distributed Energy Resources. This will reduce the reliance on large, thermal, synchronous generation for restoration services and increase competition in the market to deliver cost and carbon emissions reductions.