UK editor Liam Stoker writes in a blog for the energy transition and smart power site this week that National Grid’s Distributed Resource Desk – a new platform for managing distributed resources on its network – is starting to enable wider participation in the BM.

National Grid, in its capacity as the UK’s Electricity System Operator (ESO), last week launched a new ‘Distributed Resource Desk’ in its control room in a move hailed as a “huge step forward” for electricity flexibility markets.

Battery assets have been used in the UK’s Balancing Mechanism for the first time via a virtual power plant, marking the start of what could be a new era for energy storage business models in Britain.

Energy storage and other flexibility providers with units as small as 1MW will soon be able to access ‘Great Britain’s core flexibility market’ under reforms being proposed by transmission system operator, National Grid.

Vertically integrated energy company Scottish Power has submitted a proposal to extend recently introduced battery de-rating factors in Britain’s Capacity Market to storage included in demand side response bids in what has been described as a latest attack on the battery market.