Electricity Regulator, Douglas McIldoon today issued rules for the future of trading in renewable electricity generated by wind power.
The recommendations contained in a paper entitled “Trading in Renewable Electricity” relate only to wind power as it is both the most developed renewable technology and the main source of renewable electricity in use in Northern Ireland.
As Douglas McIldoon explains “Discrimination in favour of renewable energy is now accepted both by the European Union and its Member states. These new rules give immediate and least cost effect to this principle in Northern Ireland.
The reason for focussing on wind energy at this time is because there is a lot of wind power waiting in the wings that could be developed quickly, giving confidence and credibility to the market as well as assisting the overall supply balance.”
The Regulator’s recommendations for future trading in wind generated power focus on the main difficulty for wind suppliers which is to balance the economic value of what they put on the system with what their customers consume. This is problematic because customers’ demands tends to peak when electricity is most valuable and secondly because wind output is not predictable.
Commenting on this problem Douglas McIldoon said: “I believe that the problem can be overcome by requiring renewable suppliers to procure over the course of a year, 120 percent of the amount required by their customers with the risk of both gains and losses on this being borne by the customer body as a whole Consequently, wind generators would not be required to pay for “top up” when their customers’ requirements exceed the wind farms production.
In addition, I propose giving small-scale renewables-which already have the right to sell their output at whatever price they can achieve-the right to have it bought at 3p per unit.”
Full details of the recommendations and the mechanics of how trading will work in practice are contained in the paper “Trading in Renewable Electricity” which is available on this website or from OFREG, Brookmount Buildings, 42 Fountain Street, Belfast, BT1 5EE, tel. 028 9031 1575, fax. 028 9031 1740.
Notes for Editors
In order to identify the problems preventing the market developing and to deal with other aspects of trading renewables, Ofreg convened a Trading in Renewables Implementation Group (TRIG) in 2001. This brought together the existing and some prospective players in the renewable market together with Ofreg, NIE, and the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment. TRIG considered the issues both with regard to the large scale producer and what might be regarded as the cottage industry in renewables - the small scale producers with a few kilowatts of production capacity but who have, at least some of the time, electricity surplus to their own requirements.
A consultation paper summarising the findings of TRIG was published in August 2001 and comments were invited.
This interim decision paper has been published in the light of those comments and their discussion by a reconvened TRIG meeting.
For further information or to arrange an interview with Douglas McIldoon, please contact Nick Carson on 028 9127 5965 or 07711 482807