Market Development

Having built the tools and systems to support flexibility trading, such as the Neutral Market Facilitator, in November 2021 the TRANSITION project started running Flexibility Market Trials.

A ‘synthetic’, meaning artificial, request was issued to trial participants, asking them to change their electricity use to help balance the network. These trials were run to test the concept of flexibility trading and did not help to balance the network in real time. They enabled the trade and export of capacities, allowing people with spare capacity to temporarily trade this with “network neighbours”.  

Our trials focused on six areas in Oxfordshire which have Bulk Supply Points, which are major connections to the national transmission network: Yarnton, Bicester North, Headington, Oxford, Cowley and Drayton.

Participants in the trials ranged from a major government department to a family-run SME and Oxfordshire based social enterprise. All are keen to increase their ability to manage their energy bills and play their part in delivering net zero.  

TRANSITION market trials were iterative, meaning they supported a process of constant learning,; improving market accessibility for customers and communities, increasing market liquidity and trailing flexibility services and dispatch of DERs. Through these interactions SSEN began to build learnings around how flexibility providers should be selected and supported and how the reliability of dispatch must be measured.