Task Forces

This Task Force has now concluded. 

What was the scope of the Task Force?

The terms of reference outlined the scopes of the Task Forces, as well as what the expected outputs were. Their contribution and outputs were shared for review at the quarterly Charging Futures forums. They were also shared with the Charging Delivery Body, to consider the best route for implementation.

Task Force members 

These Task Forces were chaired by Ofgem, supported by Energy Networks Association as secretariat. Task Force members were volunteers representing a spectrum of industry participants - from network users, network owners, and subject matter experts.   

View the Task Force member list

Task Force publications

This Task Force has now concluded. 

Ofgem asked the Electricity System Operator (ESO) to launch a Balancing Services Charges Task Force under the Charging Futures arrangements, to provide analysis to support decisions on the future direction of Balancing Services Use of System charges (BSUoS).

The ESO lead and provided coordination and administrative (secretariat) support for the Task Force. The scope for the Task Force and timetable for delivery of the outputs can be found in the terms of reference.

This Task Force has now concluded. 

As you may be aware, Ofgem published their final decision and impact assessment on the Targeted Charging Review in November 2019. Ofgem made an important announcement on the work of the Balancing Services Task Force.

The first Task Force concluded that Balancing Services charges should be treated as cost-recovery charges. In order to develop this work further, Ofgem requested a second Balancing Services task force, led by National Grid ESO.

The Task Force looked at applying the TCR principles to balancing services charges as a cost-recovery charge to consider how they should be recovered. The second task force looked at two specific questions:

• Who should be liable for Balancing Services charges.
• How should these charges be recovered.

The ESO lead and provided coordination and administrative (secretariat) support for the task force.  The scope for the Task Force and timetable for delivery of the outputs can be found in the terms of reference.

Ofgem published their final view on the findings of the second Balancing Services charges Task force, which concluded in September 2020.

Ofgem are supportive in principle of the recommendations put forwards by the Task Force, which are as follows. 

Who should pay BSUoS?

1. BSUoS should be levied on final demand.

How should BSUoS be recovered?

1. BSUoS should be a volumetric (£/MWh) charge.
2. BSUoS charges should be fixed ex-ante.
3. The combined length of fix and notice period should be 14/15 months.

What are the next steps?

Ofgem has indicated that solutions to deliver the Task Force’s recommendations will be developed through the code modification process. To support their evaluation of these proposals, Ofgem will undertake further work to:

• Explore the cashflow exposure to the ESO of managing a fixed BSUoS charge and any alternatives for which a different party manages the risk
• Undertake quantitative analysis to assess the net benefits of the proposals and the potential impact on energy intensive users

Read Ofgem's letter on its views on the findings of the Task Force.

This group has now concluded. 

The industry led access working group considered incremental improvements to the allocation of access rights, including better management of connection queues, allowing distributed generation with non-firm connections to trade with others to reduce the extent they are curtailed, and better enabling the exchange of access rights between users. 

This group was made up of the network companies and the Electricity System Operator as established by Ofgem.