Could you please briefly explain the current and the future role of ancillary services?

Ancillary services have always been a part of the power system requirements but its importance grows as traditional energy revenues fall. Demand for the ancillary services is also increasing with the increased intermittent generation capacity, reducing Inertia and the reduction in inductive load. Increasing capacitive load as traditional manufacturing is replaced with services industry.

Many companies are expecting the finalisation of the balancing guidelines. Which strategy do firms need to put in practice for integration now that finalisation is on the horizon?

The balancing guidelines will make cross border actions more common place and with the advent of regional markets it is important to determine if this is an opportunity, threat or something that can be left for others to deal with. The right strategy will depend on the size and nature of your business. We do not expect much to happen to our main market in the UK.

Can you shed light on the importance of RES within ancillary services?

I think it is crucial to be able to provide the ancillary services from renewable technologies if the decarbonisation of the power grid is going to continue. Technically it is feasible from intermittent generation – but the service is needed 24/7 so we also need to look to biomass, biogas and storage solutions. A combination of various technologies is likely to provide the cheapest answer.

How can storage solutions help with capacity management and intermittency of renewable energy?

Storage in form of batteries can manage the hour to hour swings and perhaps day to day in the future – but managing output over longer time horizons need physical storage (or more money than we have). The losses in chemical or mechanical storage are likely to be larger than for electrical storage – but it will be off-set by lower capital costs. Renewable production that is limited in energy output but flexible in dispatch (reservoir hydro and biomass) can be thought of as storage as it will be able to fill in the gaps for intermittent renewable.

What would you like to achieve by attending the 9th Edition European Electricity Ancillary and Balancing Forum?

I am looking forward to hearing about how other market participants (generators, grid operators, aggregators etc) tackle some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in the Ancillary services space.