UK's National Grid delays access to European reserve market TERRE

London — National Grid has delayed UK access to the trans-European replacement reserve market, known as Project TERRE, until the end of October at the earliest due to the coronavirus pandemic, the system operator said Friday.

TERRE is the cross-border electricity balancing market scheme projected to save UK consumers Eur13 million ($14 million) a year. The UK was due to join the market in June.

"We cannot deploy access to the European Replacement Reserve market using the Libra platform until it is also deployed in France," where system operator Reseau de Transport d'Electricite (RTE) had already delayed implementation, National Grid said.

"We know that there has been some frustration with the length of time it has taken us to come to this decision," the system operator said.

This was partly due to its obligation to consult with regulator Ofgem and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ahead of any announcement, it said.

Another reason for delaying implementation was the need to move core National Grid staff to operational roles from project roles.

"Work to review all of our projects across the ESO [electricity system operator] forms part of our wider response to COVID-19, it said.

The company had put measures in place to protect its shift teams, critical support teams and IT teams, while continuing to focus on core operational activities.

"These measures include segregating our shift teams across our two control rooms and asking some of our experts to return from projects to operational duties," it said.

Segregation meant National Grid's training facility was currently unavailable and it could not prepare for TERRE Go-Live without the correct training, it said.

Once lockdown guidelines were lifted it would take some time to return the project to a fully active status.

"We expect GB Go-Live to take place at the end of October at the earliest," it said.

Meanwhile it would continue testing on TERRE's Libra platform with a group of prospective market participants.

Libra went live January 6. Eight system operators were involved in the launch but only CEPS (Czech Republic) has so far joined. Spain was to join March 3 with the remaining countries (France, UK, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland) joining in waves through 2021/22.