IN Brief:
- National Grid DSO is launching Responder, a flexibility service designed to support network resilience during storms.
- The service will use flexible demand turn-up across the DSO’s licence area ahead of severe weather events.
- Procurement is planned for summer 2026, with delivery running from September 2026 to March 2027.
National Grid DSO is launching a flexibility service designed to strengthen electricity network resilience during severe weather events.
The new service, named Responder, will allow the DSO to access flexible demand turn-up across its entire licence area before forecast storms. It builds on SP Energy Networks’ earlier StormFlex trial, extending the concept into a wider procurement model rather than limiting activity to specific constraint management zones.
During storms, network damage can force alternative operating arrangements to maintain supplies. Those arrangements can place additional strain on healthy assets as power flows are redirected around damaged sections of the network.
Responder is designed to reduce that strain by bringing electricity use forward into earlier windows before severe weather arrives. Eligible activity may include charging electric vehicles, pre-heating homes, running appliances, or completing industrial processes before network conditions become more exposed.
The service also helps prepare customers and assets for possible interruption by ensuring batteries, vehicles, and key equipment are charged ahead of the storm period. It is being built on National Grid DSO’s existing Operational Utilisation product, reducing the need for flexibility providers to engage with a wholly separate market structure.
Procurement is planned for summer 2026, with delivery running from September 2026 to March 2027. That period covers the winter storm season, when outage planning, asset resilience, and emergency response are at their most operationally sensitive.
The service sits within a wider shift in distribution system operation. National Grid Electricity Distribution’s ten-year network development plan, available through electricalnews.co.uk, set out network constraints, headroom, and intervention options including flexibility, reinforcement, and operational mitigation.
Flexibility services have commonly been associated with constraint management, reinforcement deferral, and peak-load reduction. Responder applies flexibility to resilience, using controllable demand to reduce stress on assets during abnormal operating conditions rather than only during predictable demand peaks.
That approach depends on accurate weather forecasting, asset visibility, customer participation, and rapid dispatch coordination. Resilience-led flexibility is not identical to routine local constraint management. Its trigger conditions are shaped by storm risk, network vulnerability, and the likelihood of forced switching, rather than by load forecasts alone.
Distribution networks are also gaining more controllable demand. EV charging, heat pumps, home batteries, smart appliances, and industrial process scheduling create opportunities to shift load, but only where response is dependable, measurable, and available when the network operator needs it.
The operational challenge lies in turning dispersed flexibility into a resource that can be called with confidence. Providers must understand dispatch requirements, customer behaviour, metering accuracy, settlement, and availability obligations. The DSO must know which flexibility can be delivered, where it is located electrically, and how it will affect assets under storm-related stress.
Responder will test whether flexibility can support resilience at network scale. Its value will be demonstrated through participation levels, dispatch accuracy, customer response, and the extent to which shifted demand reduces asset loading during severe weather. If the model proves reliable, resilience-led flexibility could become a larger part of future DSO planning and operational procurement.
