National Grid is confident it has the tools to manage the power system this winter.

That’s the view of the Director of UK System Operator Cordi O’Hara, who spoke to ELN at the Energy Live 2016 conference last week.

She said: “This year we’ve bought 3.5GW of supplement balancing reserve. That’s generation we hold for our own use at the time of a system stress event.

“We’ve done a lot of modelling and that has let us to buying 3.5GW, which is the equivalent to 6.6% overall margin. That is a slight increase from last year and I’m confident we’ve got the tools to manage the system.”

Last week, power generators were asked to be ready to provide power as the grid operator issued the first capacity notice.

Ms O’Hara also spoke about the progress the grid operator’s Power Responsive scheme is making towards encouraging businesses to change how and when they use electricity by giving them a reward.

She said demand side response (DSR) is attracting more firms as they are seeing the benefits it brings.

She added: “Now that we look at how technologies are enabling demand side response to be done seamlessly so it doesn’t hurt businesses, doesn’t hurt the end consumer. If you look at the way you can automate refrigeration, air conditioning and the way we can create new products to really incentivise load that can genuinely move up and down during the day, I think we’ve made a lot more progress in traction, there’s still a lot to do. There’s a lot to do still in terms of education, engagement.”

Keep an eye out for more stories and videos from the Energy Live 2016 conference over the coming days.