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Network February 2020

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to act out and make the decisions they felt that specific industry actor would make. We closely monitored how rules could impact each participant, and how unintended consequences may develop. The event process and rules were tweaked, and the event was rerun in Oxford involving the LEO project partners. With a different audience, we noticed some simi - larities in the decisions they made but again gave another view on how they expected certain industry players could act. Attend- ees at the workshops were able to interact with future energy scenarios, test the rules that govern them and challenge those that create unfairness. In October we hosted a further two workshops. This time participants in the simulation represented the role they would be performing in the future energy system. This included suppliers, traders, aggrega - tors, customers, DNOs, ESO, asset owners and industry experts, all participating in an interactive event that tested the rules of a future flexibility market. Participants traded a portfolio of flexibility assets and used the interaction to analyse the dra… Basic Market Rules (BMR) that had been devel- oped to structure the market. Drawing upon their expertise from different sectors of the industry, they tested the rules, checked for NETWORK / 23 / FEBRUARY 2020 errors and identified loopholes which might allow the market to be damaged through manipulation. Participants raised a variety of risks Participants identified occasions where market actors would need to be compen- sated in the event of an ESO or DSO outage; where smaller market actors risked being disadvantaged; and where the DSO would need to be flexible if a market need ceased to exist. The high level of attendance at the market simulation event, the engagement during and a…er the day and the amount of material that attendees chose to take away with them, were indicative of the effective, stimulating format. The 'learning by doing' principle embedded within TRANSITION will now in turn inform the Energy Net - works Association's Open Networks Project. The market simulation that SSEN has run will therefore help inform the whole net- work sector and wider energy industry. This new way of running an event brought a fresh view on, not just how stake- holders interact with network operators, but how other stakeholders interact with each other in a real-time simulation environment. The transition to DSO, and the need to move quickly to accommodate net zero emissions, means we cannot wait to only learn from pilot projects. Simulation events allow us to get live feedback and incorporate the thinking of a wide-range of industry actors quickly. I am excited about the simulation days as a tool for stakeholder engagement as they can be easily replicated throughout a range of different projects. Learning by doing By being highly interactive, market simula- tion events ensure attendees feel like they have a real stake in the decisions that are being made, and their input is invaluable in highlighting areas that we may not have considered. The lessons we learn in these sessions will be applied to deliver real world benefits to the communities we serve. A consistent comment that came back from all four simulation events was the de - sire for more scenarios to be run, and to be re-run. It wasn't just about SSEN altering the direction of where the project was to go, but stakeholders also got the opportunity to test the impact of taking different decisions. The learnings from these workshops will help us ensure that neutrality and conflict avoidance are embedded in the future elec- tricity system architecture. To be amongst the first to hear when and where these will take place, please visit ssen-transition.com. TRANSITION TO DSO

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