SSEN seeks flexibility providers for Scottish islands

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), the electricity DNO for the north of Scotland, has issued a request for information (RFI) in a bid to increase the use of flexibility services on Scotland’s islands.

The RFI aims to identify new flexibility participants in a selection of SSEN island communities and establish routes to market to inform a procurement strategy for flexibility.

SSEN hopes to hear responses from owners or operators of generation and energy storage, aggregators who manage multiple sites on behalf of several electricity producers, and businesses of various sizes, including industrial and commercial customers.

The islands in question include Orkney, Shetland, Outer Hebrides, Mull, Coll, Tiree, Islay, Jura and Colonsay. These are areas across the Inner and Outer Hebrides and Northern Isles where thermal constraints have been identified and diesel generation is commonly used.

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According to SSEN, each island group has unique challenges and network configurations. For example, some communities operate as separate networks permanently, while others operate like this only during certain outages. In some cases, this separation is unplanned.

As such, the flexibility services used elsewhere in their license areas may not be suitable. The RFI outlines various network challenges that flexibility services would help address while gathering information on key barriers to participation in each region.

Commenting in a release Catherine Winning, flexibility services manager at SSEN Distribution, said: “Scotland’s islands are unique in a multitude of ways and offer great potential for building out the role of flexibility services as part of the local electricity mix.

“We’ve had great early successes in this field – which have produced tangible benefits for island communities and contributed to over 40,000kg CO2 in reduced emissions. The likely benefits for potential providers – and wider communities – speak for themselves, so I’m keen to talk to interested parties to see if they can help expand these benefits further.”

Subject to the success of the RFI, SSEN says they may look to expand the scope to cover more island communities within the Hebrides.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 20 September at 5pm.