Triads: were you caught out?

Last winter, most businesses were caught out by the unusual occurrences of Triads, taking place outside the more frequent 5pm – 6pm periods or at the very edge of the Triad season. There was a great deal of speculation about the influence that businesses were having by implementing demand management measures or acting on Triad warnings. The common belief was that as businesses continued to invest in demand-side management, Triads would become increasingly difficult to predict and eventually we would probably see a complete overhaul of the Triad system.

National Grid has now published the triad dates for winter 2016/17 and, surprisingly, these dates have reverted to the previously predictable patterns – all the triads happened between 5 and 5:30pm, two occurred on Mondays (statistically the most common date) with the third on a Thursday (statistically the second most common date) and all dates were in December and January: