In 2023/24, we contracted 706 MW of Flexibility Services: dispatched 554 MWh and spent £275k.

If you own, operate, manage or supply generation, storage or demand assets over 10kW in any of the advertised zones you may be able to provide flexibility services.



Participating in Flexibility with SSEN

SSEN has long served diverse geographic areas, and this experience means we’ve always innovated when it comes to managing the supply and demand of electricity.

We continue to make progress in building our flexibility markets, having procured over 700 MW since the beginning of ED2. We have also signed up a total of 12 providers to the latest version of the overarching agreement, ready to bid in our markets.

To maximise market participation, we have done the following over the past year:

- Reduced minimum DER (Distributed Energy Resources​) size to 10 kW
- Trialed Guaranteed revenue for some Variable Availability services
- Improved Bid Pricing Form
- Implemented Overarching Agreements

We continue to seek feedback from all stakeholders on areas that work well and those where further improvements could help to drive increased engagement and participation from both existing and potential future providers of flexibility services.


How to Take Part in Flexibility

The first time you participate there are several steps that you need to take.


To participate in Flexibility Services with SSEN, you will follow our standard process that takes place on our Market Platform, ElectronConnect. This starts with registration and prequalification. A copy of the “Flexibility Service Pre-Qualification Standard Template” will be available on ElectronConnect and can also be found under “Service Documentation” in 

Once you are pre-qualified, you can move on to the contracting process. We have specific time periods where there is an opportunity for you to accept the Terms and Conditions of the Overarching Agreement. This is run in the Electron Connect platform. At the end of the time period, submissions are reviewed and approved Providers are sent an overarching agreement for signature. Signing the overarching agreement allows you to participate in future biddings windows. The opportunity to participate occur several times a year, so keep an eye out for announcements.

Before the bidding window opens, you'll prepare by declaring which of your assets are located in areas where we are seeking flexibility, as announced in advance. We conduct long term bidding windows 2-3 times a year, for needs >3-months in advance, as well as monthly short term bidding windows for upcoming needs in <3-months.

If your bids for flexibility are successful, you will be notified of availability needs at the period of time specified by the service type (either month ahead, week ahead or day ahead).

Upcoming Opportunities to sign an Overarching Agreement

We will be running a new opportunity to be awarded an Overarching Agreements in July 2025. This will open on Monday 14th July 11:00 and close on Monday 28th July 17:00 (step 2 in our process).

Providers must have submitted and have had approved, their prequalification questionnaire (PQQ) before Monday 14th July at 11am to participate (step 1 in our process).

Please watch the above videos to find out about the different steps in the process and contact us at flexibilityprocurement@sse.com. If you have any questions.

Upcoming Bidding Rounds

Long-Term, > 3-months Ahead

Variable Availability + Operational Utilisation (VAOU): 09:00 Monday 19th May 2025  – 11:00 Friday 06th June 2025 

Scheduled Utilisation (SU): 09:00 Monday 19th May 2025  – 11:00 Friday 06th June 2025 11:00

Short Term, Month Ahead:

Tuesday 8th April 09:00 – Thursday 10th April 17:00 - no requirements identified.

Re-tender: Load Managed Area (LMA) Payment Service

Wednesday 21st May – Wednesday 18th June

Click to access the tender

We are pleased to announce that we are re-running the tender for the Load Managed Areas (LMAs) payment service which is focused on households with 5 port smart meters being implemented.

Should you wish to participate, please click on the link above for further details.

Document Library

Access our document library for service documents, reports, and procurement-related information.

Need further assistance?

Feel free to email our team for further assistance with the button below:

Contact us