Sharing the costs of decarbonisation through GB’s integrated electricity market These balancing costs include constraint costs, which disproportionately arise in Scotland due to the large amount of intermittent wind generation connected there. This largely relates to the Transmission Network Use of System (TNUoS) charges, but other costs such as balancing-costs are also shared across GB. This improved efficiency, reduced costs and increased security of supply.Ĭosts sharing for electricity transmissionĪ key feature of the GB’s electricity market is that the costs of building and maintaining its transmission system are, for the most part, spread across the whole of GB.
Independence pro or con full#
As a result, generators across GB became equally part of the full GB system. The reforms meant that electricity generators in Scotland could trade in the wider GB market without reserving specific capacity on the interconnectors. Prior to this, Scotland’s electricity market was separate to the rest of GB with electricity traded between Scotland and the rest of GB via interconnectors (analogously to the cross-border interconnectors that the UK has with France, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland ). In 2005 the British Electricity Trading Transmission Arrangements ( BETTA) were introduced and created the single integrated GB electricity market for the first time. GB’s integrated energy markets are regulated by the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) with a single set of standards, regulations and network codes applied for each market, with many costs shared between consumers across GB. A single System Operator for the GB’s electricity and gas transmission systems (National Grid ESO and National Grid Gas Transmission respectively) is responsible for stable and secure operation across the country including real time operation, efficient supply and demand management, maintenance and longer term development. Currently, Great Britain ( GB) has single integrated energy markets for both electricity and natural gas.