Fast Reserve provides the rapid and reliable delivery of active power through an increased output from generation or a reduction in consumption from demand sources, following receipt of an electronic despatch instruction from National Grid. Active power delivery must start within 2 minutes of the despatch instruction at a delivery rate in excess of 25MW/minute, and the reserve energy should be sustainable for a minimum of 15 minutes. 

Fast Reserve is used, in addition to other energy balancing services, to control frequency changes that might arise from sudden, and sometimes unpredictable, changes in generation or demand.

Fast Reserve is procured via a monthly process and requires pre-qualification to establish a framework agreement prior to tendering. 

For more detailed information on Fast Reserve please view the information in our Balancing Services Contracts Information Pack.

Alternatively please contact your Account Manager or Sam Wither of our Contracts team +44 (0)1926 656492, sam.wither@uk.ngrid.com.

General Information

During 2008 the Fast Reserve Generic Terms underwent an industry consultation exercise and resulted in a number of proposed changes being published for further feedback.  The feedback proved very useful in determining what changes were welcomed by the industry and which areas required further consultation.  A Workshop was developed and conducted in July 2008.  Following this workshop a further document was published providing an overview of the proposed changes to each service and industry comments were invited.  Following feedback we have now published the new contractual framework and Standard Contract Terms for the Fast Reserve service.

All the service review related documents can be found under the title “Fast Reserve - Invitation to Tender”.

For further information on becoming a Fast Reserve provider please contact Sam Wither on +44 (0)1926 656492 or via email  sam.wither@uk.ngrid.com