What are Triads?

Triad season starts on Tuesday, 1st November, running throughout the winter and ending on the 28th February. The three half hourly (HH) settlement periods with the highest UK system demand, separated by at least 10 days will be the confirmed Triads, announced by National Grid once Triad season has ended. National Grid then use the confirmed Triads to calculate TNUoS (Transmission Network Use of System) charges for demand customers with HH meters.

Our Triad services

SmartestEnergy issue daily email and/or text alerts as part of our Triad warning service to help our customers manage their operations around potential Triad periods. Our dedicated Energy Management Centre alerts our customers when a Triad is possible, so you can prepare and react accordingly – read how Saint-Gobain UK "powered down" to reduce Triad costs

Each warning comes with:

  • A likelihood scale to help you understand the possibility of it being one of the three triad periods;
  • The start and end time of the predicted Triad (typically between 4pm-7pm)
  • Forecast of peak within day demand to compare to previous peaks in the same season

Please contact your Account Manager to sign up to our Triad Alert email/text service.

Winter 2021/22 results

If you receive SmartestEnergy's Triad Warnings, you'll be pleased to know that all three Triads were predicted correctly. The three Triads all occurred on the following days:

  • Thursday 2nd December 2021, 16:30-17:00 (43,748MW Net System Demand)
  • Thursday 20th January 2022, 17:30-18:00 (43,538MW Net System Demand)
  • Wednesday 5th January 2022, 17:00-17:30 (42,760MW Net System Demand)

> Read more

Targeted Charging Review (TCR) changes ahead

This the last winter left to take advantage of Triad avoidance and the subsequent TNUoS cost saving opportunities before significant changes are expected to come into play from 2023 under the Targeted Charging Review (TCR).

The TCR is a Significant Code Review (SCR) led by industry regulators, Ofgem that assesses how residual network charges should be set and recovered in Great Britain. They will be changing the way DUoS (Distribution Use of System) costs are charged from April 2022 and changes to TNUoS will come into play from April 2023, meaning there will be very little value in Triad avoidance from Winter 2023.

> Learn more

More information