Capacity Market: proposals to modernise Rules and improve participation and delivery assurance of consumer-led flexibility

The Capacity Market (CM) is our main mechanism for ensuring security of electricity supply and has already secured the majority of Great Britain’s capacity needs out to 2027/28.  It provides all forms of capacity, including Demand Side Response (DSR) to enable consumer-led flexibility, generation, storage and interconnection with the right incentives to be on the system to deliver when needed.  

The CM is a technology-neutral scheme, underpinned by Rules which set out the requirements on its participants. The CM Rules are regularly reviewed and amended to ensure they remain fit for purpose and to reflect changing market conditions.

This consultation is seeking views on:

• a series of improvements to the clarity of the CM Rules. Government is proposing to do this by removing ambiguities and out of date Rules
• a change to the rules to clarify that existing units can alter an initial Opt-out Notification if their operational circumstances change
• an extension to enable mothball plants to apply for 2025 prequalification for auctions held in 2026
• proposals to address administrative burdens for CM participants and CM Delivery Bodies with respect to aggregated DSR portfolios, and bolstering delivery assurance
• the introduction of a termination fee for failure to demonstrate agreed DSR capacity ahead of Delivery Years

This may be of interest to:

• Capacity Market Participants
• energy suppliers and DSR providers
• trade bodies
• consumer groups
• Capacity Market delivery partners

This consultation is being published alongside a call for evidence on consumer-led flexibility.

We encourage respondents to review both the consultation and the call for evidence in tandem, and respond to both using the online response form.

Read our consultation privacy notice.