Tom Greatrex – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Tom Greatrex on 2014-04-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what forecast he has made of the impact of capacity contracted under the Supplemental Balancing Reserve to the Loss of Load Expectation in the winter of (a) 2014-15 and (b) 2015-16.

Michael Fallon

The Government has not made any forecast of the impact of capacity contracted under the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) on the Loss of Load Expectation for winter 2014-15 or 2015-16.SBR is one of National Grid’s two new balancing services, approved by Ofgem in December 2013. SBR and the Demand Side Balancing Reserve (DSBR) will address potential capacity shortfalls in the middle of the decade. National Grid is currently developing a methodology to determine how much capacity should be contracted via SBR. Once this is approved by Ofgem, National Grid will proceed with the procurement process.