The current incarnation of the Short Term Operating Reserve market has been in place for around eight years, running three tenders a year. Its predecessor was a product called standing reserve, but Alastair Martin, chief strategy officer at Flexitricity, explains the difference was that the old name "implied a certain type of asset; the STOR name is intended to convey a service instead.” Although the commercial arrangements changed, and that changed the market, it was “hard to determine any major technical changes between STOR and standing reserve”.