Flexibility markets service

Cornwall Insight’s Flexibility Markets Service offers complete coverage and insight across the GB flexibility markets for electricity. Our comprehensive service offers regular price and value monitoring of key revenue streams, highlights and explains important policy and regulatory changes and provides an independent view on the market landscape and competitor developments. This service will help you:

• Maximise your commercial position
• Understand the regulatory environment you are operating in and how this could impact your commercial decisions
• Understand the changing charging regime and how this could impact you
• Build a comprehensive business case
• Mitigate risks and understand how revenues and costs will change going forward
• Understand timeframes for key industry developments that will impact your business
• Ensure your business is fully compliant

The core of the Flexibility Markets Service is a 15-year forward projection of key balancing services including response (FFR, Dynamic Containment) and reserve (STOR) services, modelled using Cornwall Insight’s Plexos based Benchmark Power Curve. This service is unique to the market and helps to shape long term commercial strategy and supports investment decisions in the rapidly developing GB flexibility markets.

The service also provides regular analysis of the commercial developments throughout the various revenue streams for flexibility providers to give a collective view of value across all National Grid ESO and DSO flexibility markets. Key components of this include: 

• Regular analysis on all revenue streams including Firm Frequency Response (FFR), Dynamic Containment (DC) and Balancing Mechanism (BM).
• Revenue benchmark assessments and backcasts
• Auction price trends and outlook analysis including daily BM analysis
• Assessment of market competition, asset value, new entrants and Virtual Lead Parties.
• Supporting data packs from our coverage

Monthly user group

A dedicated Monthly User (‘Flexibility Forum’) Group for Flexibility Market Service subscribers enables you to acquire an in-depth, real-time understanding of the commercial flexibility landscape. It discusses the issues that are currently, and will be, impacting flexibility and the demand-side response sector helping you identify the risks and opportunities for your business. The format is interactive and provides a platform for you to engage with Cornwall Insight’s experts and industry specialists. You will be able to ask any questions you may have to the experts and network with leading players in this sector.  

Capacity Market

Our Capacity Market forecast details clearing prices for upcoming T-1 and T-4 auctions, which will allow you to better formulate your business’s bidding strategy as well as understand the values that could be achieved through this revenue stream. Our updates throughout the year will inform you of key changes to scheme rules as well as information on the pre-qualified and fully qualified plant. Additionally, you will receive our analysis of each set of auction results.

Flexible Asset PPA market

Bi-annually you will receive Cornwall Insight’s expert views of the current and future size of the flexible generation market, allowing you to keep abreast of the market and the active key players. This is broken down by capacity and the number of assets, by technology and company ownership.

Alongside the overview of the market is our commercial review, which looks at the active offtakers in the market and the amount of capacity held by each offtaker. This provides you with a unique perspective on those engaged in the market and gives insight into the revenue streams sought by flexible assets in PPAs. 

You will receive price benchmarking and revenue analysis, which explores flexible asset PPA pricing and discounts across typical PPAs and technology archetypes. We also highlight PPA revenue share arrangements and potential earnings to help you make judgements on the market and evaluate where you stand. 

Policy and regulation

The policy and regulation landscape is constantly evolving. This can make it a challenge to identify all the changes of importance to your business as well as understand their potential impacts. With the ability to see all the changes over time, you will be able to understand where the regulation and policy landscape is heading. This will allow you to make informed future strategic and operational decisions.

Regular Alerts provide a timely update of any changes to regulation policy, consultations or proposals as they happen.  Each Alert is easy to understand and provides you with background on the issue, details on the proposals presented and likely next steps.

A Weekly Impact Report will update you on the very latest regulatory and governance changes, tailored to your business to ensure you are compliant with all your obligations. We provide a detailed analysis on how these could potentially influence your business, to give you the confidence to assess risks quickly and easily.

Our Code Modification Registers track all the latest codes and provide you with a comprehensive update of the most critical issues. This ensures you don’t miss something which could cause significant challenges for your organisation.

Industry Meeting Reports provide an overview of the main themes, topics and decisions arising from key regulatory and policy meetings. Keeping track of industry meetings allows you to be ahead on where the industry is going and enables you to make informed decisions before any changes are made without necessarily having to attend.

The Policy and Regulation Consultations Register gives an overview of all open consultations from Ofgem, BEIS, European Commission, as well as other regulatory bodies. We will keep you up to date of all new consultations and their closing dates, to help you understand what could affect your business and mitigate any risks.