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Network Options Assessment (NOA)

The NOA has an important role in developing an efficient, coordinated, and economic system of electricity transmission.

Enquiries

  • [email protected]

NOA highlights

  • Learn about options that transmission owners have provided to meet capability requirements on Britain's electricity transmission network.
  • Read about options the system operator recommends to the transmission owners to further develop for this investment year.
  • Discover options that meet Ofgem's criteria for onshore competition.
  • Interconnection analysis.

What NOA does

  • Recommends which options and when the TOs should invest in them, so their transmission networks can manage risk in an uncertain world.
  • Recommends whether TOs should delay or continue current projects to make sure they are completed at a time that will deliver the most benefit.
  • Can indicate the optimum level of interconnection to other European electricity grids to maximise socio-economic welfare, based on market-driven analysis.

Latest news

We are running a series of interactive workshops to hear your opinions and further develop the early competition model. The "Indicative Solution Identification Process" workshop on September 29 will cover the Interested Persons' process and we would like to hear your feedback. 

Sign up here

Future of Energy updates

Subscribe to our mailing list and we'll let you know as soon as we publish any of our future of energy documents.

Subscribe to updates

Network Development Roadmap

In May 2018 we set out our plans to transform our network planning to drive even great value for consumers. Our proposals were set out in our Network Development Roadmap. For more information, you can visit our network development roadmap webpage. 

Visit our webpage
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NOA 2019/20

NOA's purpose is to make recommendations to transmission owners across Britain as to which projects to proceed with to meet the future network requirements as defined in the Electricity Ten Year Statement (ETYS).

The NOA is best viewed on a dedicated pdf reader, you can also download a print ready version.

Download the NOA

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NOA Methodology 2020/21

Our NOA methodology was submitted to Ofgem in accordance with our licence condition C27 and is now available to download. 

We are grateful for the input we received during our consultation this year. We are always keen to get your feedback so 
please contact us through our email address: [email protected]

Download the NOA methodology

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NOA 2020/21 and Interested Persons

The Interested Persons' (IP) options process is a new submission process allowing options from non-TO parties to be submitted and potentially assessed in the annual NOA process. 

The NOA 2020/21 submission window has now closed. We would welcome your feedback on this year's process to make improvements for NOA 2021/22. You can provide us with your feedback by sending us an email here.

Alternatively, we will be running a series of interactive workshops to hear your opinions and further develop the early competition model. The "Indicative Solution Identification Process" workshop on September 18 will also cover the Interested Persons' process, if you would like to attend this workshop you can sign up here.

NOA IP 2020/21 submission guidance

NOA documents

NOA Committee Past NOA documentsPast NOA methodologiesLong-term market and network constraint modellingSO Process for Input into TO Led SWW Needs Case SubmissionsFrequently asked questions

NOA Committee

We held NOA Committee meetings in December and January to scrutinise the NOA results.  The minutes of the December meeting and previous meetings are available to view. The minutes for May’s meeting will be available after the next meeting in October.

Name
NOA Committee - Minutes 13 December 2017
NOA Committee - Minutes 10 January 2018
NOA Committee - Minutes 27 April 2018
NOA Committee - Minutes 24 September 2018
NOA Committee - Minutes 11 December 2018
NOA Committee - Minutes 09 January 2019
NOA Committee - Minutes 14 May 2019
NOA Committee - Minutes 02 October 2019
NOA Committee - Minutes 10 December 2019
NOA Committee - Minutes 09 January 2020
NOA Committee - Minutes 06 May 2020
NOA Committee Terms of Reference
12

Past NOA documents

Name
Network Options Assessment 2018-19
Network Options Assessment 2017-18
Network Options Assessment 2016-17
NOA Interconnectors 2015-16
NOA 2015-16
5

Past NOA methodologies

Here are our previous NOA methodologies.

Name
NOA Methodology 2019-20
NOA Methodology 2018-19
NOA Methodology 2017-18
NOA Methodology Review Report
4

Long-term market and network constraint modelling

Since 2016, we have used BID3 to model European wholesale electricity markets and the GB balancing mechanism. BID3 replaced our previous market modelling tool, ELSI in order to allow us to perform our enhanced SO role in the following ways:

  • More sophisticated and accurate modelling of European wholesale electricity markets, and the related market dispatch, including interconnector operations
  • More sophisticated and accurate modelling of balancing mechanism and related market re-dispatch.

BID3 is retailed by Pöyry Management Consulting (www.poyry.co.uk), who have enhanced BID3 to include a Balancing Mechanism re-dispatch for Great Britain, thus allowing users to model the impact of GB transmission networks and calculate constraint costs, which we do for the purpose of Cost-Benefit Analysis in the NOA.

Transition report

A report that explains why we needed to move from ELSI to a new model, why we chose BID3, what we will use the model for and how we ensured the model is the most economic and efficient solution for current and future work.

In order to improve transparency, the SO is pleased to provide an updated version of our former optimisation model ELSI. This is populated with updated scenario data. As such the user can gain valuable insight into the rationale behind investment decisions made by the SO in the data used for SO analysis. For reference, a user guide is also provided here.

Please send any comments or questions on the release of this model to [email protected].

Independent reviewer report 

BID3 has been extensively benchmarked against ELSI. Two independent reviewers (Professor Keith Bell, University of Strathclyde and Dr Iain Staffell, Imperial College London) were appointed to review our development work, BID3 configuration and benchmarking.

Backcasting report

We have also performed a backcasting exercise on the GB balancing mechanism to assure our stakeholders that BID3 can accurately depict GB balancing costs for our long term constraint forecasting. A report on this exercise can be found below which includes detailed analysis of how accurately BID3 can replicate 2015 balancing mechanism costs.

Name
ELSI Summer 2017 - Public Release
ELSI User Guide February 2018
Independent reviewer report
Long Term Market and Network Constraint Modelling (transition report)
4

SO Process for Input into TO Led SWW Needs Case Submissions

Name
SWW Process FINAL 1.0
1

Frequently asked questions

Name
NOA Q and A from stakeholder group meeting
1
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