The Substation Podcast

Tom and Emma talk about skip rates - the term used to describe assets not being dispatched in the electricity market, although they're in merit. They discuss how definitions for skip rates differ across stakeholders, and talk about work underway to improve skip rates. Are they a natural part of balancing a complex system or are they avoidable quirk of old systems?

Tom and Emma discuss options for improving locational signals on the electricity system that aren't Locational Marginal Pricing (LMP). Could reforms to network access, network charging, new markets and services send better signals to the market and reduce constraint costs? Could these options be easier to implement than LMP, and reduce potential investor uncertainty? And why can't we just build more wires?

In the third episode in the series about the role of demand in energy markets, Emma and Tom speak to Alex Schoch, global head of flexibility at Octopus Energy. They discuss how Demand Side Response will evolve to become intelligent demand. Read the Octopus blog about this at: https://octopus.energy/blog/intelligent-demand/ 

In the second in a series on the role of demand in energy, Tom and Emma talk about the arrangements in GB gas and electricity systems that are used when the market fails to balance supply and demand. What are the steps taken to avoid disconnecting demand? How is energy rationed when there isn't enough, and how do we return back to normal market operations afterwards?

In the first in a series about energy demand, Emma and Tom discuss how demand interacts with energy, covering energy efficiency, demand side response, demand destruction and rota disconnections. How should different kinds of demand be incentivised, now and in the future?

In the third episode on electricity market design, Tom and Emma ask "What is Time?". But they're not physicists, so they can't answer this question. But they can answer: What's a Settlement Period? What's an EFA Block? What do futures contracts represent? All this - and more - in the latest episode of the Substation Podcast. 

Locational Marginal Pricing seems to be high on the policy agenda after it featured heavily in the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements released recently by BEIS, Emma and Tom chat with Adam Bell from Stonehaven as they attempt to tease apart the strengths and weaknesses of this approach to market design, and discuss possible alternatives. 

How might a clean Energy Standard help the energy system deploy towards Net Zero in a cost effective way? A clean energy standard places obligations on consumers and suppliers to secure firm low carbon power.  Emma and Tom catch up with George Day from the Energy Systems Catapult to talk through some of the implications of its design, its strengths and weaknesses and compare it to some other ideas like market splitting or locational marginal pricing (LMP). You can read more about the proposals here: https://es.catapult.org.uk/report/rethinking-electricity-markets-the-case-for-emr-2/

Emma and Tom talk about the latest development in market design in GB, the Government's Review of the Electricity Market Arrangements - REMA. It will be a wide-ranging review, with an ambitious scope, considering all aspects of markets and mechanisms. They talk about historical experience with market reform in GB, possible interventions following REMA, tne importance of governance, and the importance of good acronyms. 

In the second in the series on electricity market design, Tom and Emma discuss the two different approaches to pricing and despatch in electricity markets –central despatch and self despatch. They talk about how we moved from a centralised 'pool' market to a de-centralised market in Great Britain and ask whether there could be a case to move back again.