Triads: this year’s announcement and what it means for your business

National Grid Electricity System Operator has confirmed the winter period Triad peaks for 2018/19. Read on for more info on how this affects your business and what action you need to take.

How Triads impact your energy bill
Transmission charges (TNUoS) for large businesses are based on these periods, the three half hours of highest demand that are at least 10 days apart, between November and February.

The Grid confirmed the three peaks at:

• Thursday 22-Nov-18 from 17:00-17:30 with peak demand at 45.3MW
• Monday 10-Dec-18 from 17:00-17:30 with peak demand at 45MW
• Wednesday 23-Jan-19 from 17:30-18:00 with peak demand at 46.9MW

Based on National Grid results, triad season 2018/19 recorded the lowest demand in recent history peaking at 46.9GW during the January cold spell and at 45.2GW and 45GW in November and December respectively.

The Grid announces Triads retrospectively, so if you haven’t taken action during that time to avoid the peak charges, it can prove expensive. 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
In order to mitigate against Triad costs, companies and suppliers work hard to try to predict when they’ll be so they can turn down, or off during those periods. Due to increasing use of Triad avoidance schemes as well as flexibility solutions such as Demand Side Response and increasing use of renewables, they are getting harder to predict.  

The outlook for the next triad season is looking increasingly challenging with higher Demand Side Response (DSR) participation and embedded generation expected to further exacerbate the uncertainty. Even potentially shifting the peak half-hours outside of those outturned historically. So it’s well worth keeping in touch with your supplier to get the best support in monitoring for Triad season.

Why manage Triads?
By forecasting and reacting to expected Triads, you avoid costly peak charges. You also help the Grid during periods of high demand.  

Our Triad results
EDF Energy predicted and issued alerts for 2 out of 3 triads successfully, missing the one on 11th December. Triad warnings were issued later that week as colder weather was expected to arrive in the subsequent days. Although the temperature plummeted quickly over the next few days, the outturn demand did not increase in line with our expectations.

For further detail you can login or register to our Market Insight page. Any customers on our Triad Alert Guarantee (TAG) service or those who receive Triad alerts via Market Insight will have benefitted from our forecast.

Futureproof in 2019
The Triad mechanism could be scrapped by 2022 as part of Ofgem’s charging review, but will likely remain in place for a few years yet, so it’s worth staying ahead to avoid high costs.

We offer a range of energy solutions to support our customers in avoiding peak charges and to help them be more flexible in their energy management as the UK transitions to a low carbon future.

Your Triad management options:
Passthrough customers can sign up to our Triad Alert Guarantee (TAG) service. We promise savings for 2 out of 3 triads and will continue to provide triad warning service to our customers as part of their supply agreement, enabling them to benefit from reduced TNUoS costs via effective demand management.

Explore flexibility solutions which will help you avoid peak time energy use. Visit edfenergy.com/energysolutions to find out more.

Get Triad Alerts via our market insight portal. You can log in or register here.