Triads 2021/22: this year’s announcement and what it means for your organisation
What are Triads?
Triads are the top three half-hourly peaks of national energy demand across the grid, separated by ten clear calendar days, over the most energy intensive period of the year: November to February. National Grid confirms these peaks after the season, at the end of March.
Typically, triads occur when high business demand meets the domestic mid/late afternoon tea-time period, causing an overall spike in energy use.
How Triads impact your energy bill
To manage the huge demand on the network during the triad periods, the National Grid imposes a Transmissions Network Use of System (TNUoS) charge. This is used to finance the maintenance of the UK’s electricity grid to ensure future supply. Impacting customers with half-hourly meters, the charge is proportional to a business’ energy use over the triad periods (the three half hours of highest demand) and is linked to their location. If a business doesn’t consume electricity in the three Triad periods, they don’t pay HH (half-hourly) TNUoS charges for the entire financial year.
As standard, we include a charge for 85% of your maximum demand figure for TNUoS on our customer bills. After the final triads are announced, we issue the March invoices to show the triad periods and make any reconciliations.
The Triad challenge
To mitigate against Triad costs, companies and suppliers work hard to predict when they’ll be so they can turn down or off their energy usage during those periods. Due to the increasing use of Triad avoidance schemes as well as flexibility solutions, such as Demand Side Response and the growing use of renewables, they are getting harder to predict.
The Grid confirmed the three peaks at:
- Thursday 02-Dec-21 from 16:30-17:00 with peak demand at 43,748 MW
- Wednesday 05-Jan-22 from 17:00-17:30 with peak demand at 42,760 MW
- Thursday 20-Jan-22 from 17:00-17:30 with peak demand at 43,538 MW
Our Triad results
To support our customers, we have a team of energy experts with complex modelling and forecasting tools designed to determine when triads will likely be.
EDF predicted and issued alerts for all 3 triads successfully. Any customers on our Triad Alert Guarantee (TAG) service or those who receive Triad alerts via Market Insight will have benefitted from our forecast.
By forecasting and reacting to expected Triads, you avoid costly peak charges. You also help the Grid during periods of high demand.
