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GB monthly wholesale, balancing & asset value report – April 2020

Our latest report format has been expanded to include more analysis of price metrics, wholesale market activity, balancing mechanism bid-offer acceptances and performance of battery and gas reciprocating engine BMUs.

Highlights from April include:

  • April saw exceptionally low demand on the GB system due to the COVID-19 crisis, with transmission system demand down 18% on average relative to April 2019
  • Power prices continued to decline due to the combination of low gas prices and low demand, with average wholesale prices at £23/MWh. Daily price spreads also dropped, at £31/MWh and £59/MWh for wholesale and system prices respectively
  • Balancing actions taken by National Gridreached their highest ever level, with over 1.5 TWh of actions in both directions. Actions taken by National Grid outside the balancing mechanism through forward trades increased due to the requirement to maintain system stability at times of low demand and high renewable output; these actions largely consisted of turning down wind BMUs
  • Battery assets saw similar volumes to March, but the decrease in discharging prices slightly outweighed the decrease in charging prices to leave total cashflows down slightly, with Arenko’s 41 MW Bloxwich battery making £2,650/MW net BM cashflow. In addition, Flextricity made the first trades as a Virtual Lead Party through Philip Dennis Foodservice batteries
  • New peaking BMUs are now included in our analysis of asset performance, with gas recips from Smartest Energy and Conrad Energy in addition to those from Green Frog and Statkraft, and SSE’s Chickerell OCGT. BM offer volumes varied from 10 to 45 full output equivalent hours in April

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