Image: UK Power Networks

UK Power Networks (UKPN) has launched its biggest flexibility tender yet, to free up energy capacity across the network to connect more renewables and low carbon technologies.

The company, which is the country’s biggest electricity distributor, delivers electricity to more than eight million homes and businesses across London, the South East and the East of England.

UKPN is now procuring flexibility across 1,000 areas, which is predicted to unlock more than 500MW of capacity, equivalent to 300,000 homes over the next three years.

Sotiris Georgiopoulos, Head of Smart Grid development at UKPN, said: “This is a critical time for all energy networks.

“We need to accommodate more electric vehicles and heat pumps, along with the continued growth of solar and wind generation.

“We have been using flexibility since 2017 to accommodate growth in demand for electricity, but for the first time, we will also use it to help more renewables connect and generate electricity, something no other operator has done at the scale we are proposing.”