On reducing dispatch down of the renewable generation plan, SSE expects that dispatch down will increase in the coming years, and the programmes mentioned here will go some way to preventing this, but more needs to be done more quickly, to reduce constraints and curtailments arising from oversupply. It is also noted that there is very little engagement planned from the TSO-DSO work plan on reducing dispatch down, the only consultation being in pilot 4 on RESS 1 Early Access.

Increasing Distributed Energy Resources (DER) visibility, utilising flexible and dispatchable demand (at all scales – Large energy users, small and medium enterprises and domestic customers) and improved forecasting of wind and solar will be crucial in better planning of available resources, maximising efficiency and minimising constraints and curtailment, leading to reduced dispatch down. Integrating learning from other jurisdictions in their implementation of dispatchable demand could help the development of faster adoption and adaptation of such initiatives. However, the timescales on these tasks seem to be slow, with only gaps being identified in 2023, and tests only being run in 2025. While it is advantageous to see the promise of enhanced forecasting it would be beneficial for the industry to see greater visibility of individual milestones in this regard. Some of the existing gaps between forecasted and actual generation indicate that a focus on this area and bringing about improvements might help alleviate the need for costly redispatch e.g. from data gathered from the EirGrid System dashboard from 8th March 2023 :

Date

Time

Actual Wind Generation (MW)

Forecast Wind Generation (MW)

Discrepancy (MW)

% Forecast volume error

08/03/2023 11:30

2667

2284

-383

-17%

08/03/2023 11:45

2664

2278

-386

-17%

Additional resources should be pooled into this task to speed up the process. Increased ability to forecast demand should also become a priority alongside the development of dispatchable demand. From SSE’s involvement in the Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI) committee, it is clear that there is increased Government and industry focus on the preparation for a large scale up in electric vehicle (EV) charging capability both at fast charging hubs, business depot charging, on street and residential charging. It will be critical to have a coordinated TSO and DSO focus on the enablement of accurate forecasting of this increased load. This also has the potential for schedulable load management and dispatchable demand flexibility from this sector – to ensure that the transport sector can decarbonise at pace and with efficiency. Through SSE’s work on the Energy Cloud project, we also are advocating the clear societal and public awareness benefits of enabling demand-side flexibility to maximise the use of our indigenous renewable resources.

While we welcome the development of a Reactive power management High-level Design that can help reduce the dispatch down of renewables, a faster implementation of this could help alleviate some short-term pressures. Utilising learning developed by TSOs in other jurisdictions should be incorporated into these areas of the work programme. As all of the tasks in this work plan will only have an impact from 2025 onwards, there is nothing that helps alleviate the pressure on dispatch down in the short run. We would like to see a greater level of detail and milestones outlined in this section of the TSO/DSO work programme to enable the most efficient use of renewable energy and mitigate security of supply concerns as well as reduce barriers to the decarbonisation of other sectors.

Joint DSO/TSO Incentive Multi-Year Plan 2023-2027 - Submissions

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