As Edinburgh welcomed performers, audiences and visitors from around the world for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh International Festival, teams across SP Energy Networks were helping ensure the city's electricity network was ready to support one of its busiest periods of the year.
From major sporting events and city celebrations to severe weather and planned works, teams across SP Energy Networks work year-round to anticipate changing network needs and support customers, businesses and communities. Maintaining a resilient and reliable network is part of day-to-day operations, with teams continually looking at ways to strengthen resilience and prepare for changing requirements.
Behind the scenes, engineers, planners and operational teams monitor network performance, carry out inspections and maintenance activities, develop contingency plans and use smart monitoring technology to help keep the network ready to support customers and businesses.
Drawing on local operational experience, teams also reviewed contingency arrangements, resource availability and network risks ahead of the festival period, with particular focus on areas that historically experience high levels of activity and footfall.
Alongside the planning and operational measures already in place, flexibility services were made available to operational teams as an additional tool during the festival period.
Following discussions between Edinburgh District teams and the Flexibility Team, SP Energy Networks established its first flexibility service designed specifically to support a major event, helping provide additional support for an area serving around 20,000 customers across central Edinburgh.
Available every evening between 7pm and midnight throughout the festival period, the tender attracted more than 800 bids from providers using technologies including batteries, electric vehicles and heat pumps.
SP Energy Networks secured 2MW of flexibility capacity and successfully dispatched 136MWh of energy during the festival season, giving operational teams another tool to respond to changing network needs during one of the city's busiest periods. The energy dispatched was equivalent to charging around 2,250 electric vehicles. With typical evening demand in the area sitting at around 8MW during the summer months, the flexibility secured was equivalent to around 25% of typical evening demand.
The service was delivered through the ElectronConnect marketplace by providers including ScottishPower Retail and Octopus Energy and formed part of the wider measures used to support network resilience during one of Edinburgh's busiest annual periods.
David Climie, District General Manager for Edinburgh at SP Energy Networks, said: "Most people won't think about the electricity network when they're attending a show, visiting a venue or enjoying everything Edinburgh has to offer during festival season, but ensuring the network is ready to support that activity is an important part of our role.
This year, flexibility services gave us another tool to support the network alongside the work our teams already carry out every day, helping ensure customers, businesses and visitors could continue to enjoy everything the city had to offer."
Flexibility is now an important part of how SP Energy Networks supports a resilient and reliable electricity system, complementing the operational measures already used to prepare for major events, support planned works, respond to severe weather and make the best use of existing network capacity.
The festival season provides a recent example of how SP Energy Networks plans ahead, responds to changing network needs and uses a range of tools to support customers, communities and major events. As the first flexibility service established specifically to support a major event, it also demonstrates how flexibility could help support future operational planning for events such as Hogmanay, Christmas markets and other periods of heightened demand across the network.
For more information on flexibility visit Flexibility Services - SP Energy Networks
If you're interested in hearing more about flexibility opportunities, contact our Flex Team at flexibility@spenergynetworks.co.uk.