Mr. John Melvin:

I am not sure I can add much. The DS3 programme was designed to indicate the services that the grid needed to see in order to be secure while having large amounts of intermittent renewables. The wind may or may not stop blowing, for example, so reserves need to be ready to react quickly. Frequency on the grid can change when there are many renewables on stream. The purpose of this product was to keep the grid frequency stable.

We have seen that evolve over time. We are purchasing the amount of these services required as the level of intermittent renewables goes up. As Dr. McGowan said, many of the existing generators have modified and changed their equipment. At one time the key focus for generation was efficiency, that is, to burn less fossil fuel for more electrons. In the recent past because of these signals, it makes sense for generators to have flexibility to be able to respond quickly as well as efficiently. That is because flexibility allows the greater levels of on-grid generation.

Other ways to support more traditional generation are capacity mechanisms, including making payments to generators for being present on, and available to, the system. As more and more renewables come on stream, the actual energy price declines. As there is no margin at zero pence, why would those generators stay? There are two parts to answering that question. The first is payments for creating the services allowing a greater amount of renewables onto the system. A support or a price also then will be paid for actually having generators on this island that are useful to us. That is how we can allow that to develop and be supported.