Over half a million dollars of contracts to supply flexibility to a distribution network in Britain have been awarded through a commercial tender to resource operators including behind-the-meter energy storage systems.
Distribution network operator UK Power Networks (UKPN) and its technology platform provider Piclo celebrated the the completion of a new flexibility auction last week, the first time the latter’s online platform has been used for commercial purposes.
The platform, years in development, has been tested extensively but has now been used at the commercial scale for the first time, helping UKPN procure 18.1MW of flexibility.
Contracts worth £450,000 (US$560,000) have been awarded to AMP Clean Energy, aggregator Limejump (a recent acquisition by Shell) and residential and commercial energy storage providers Powervault and Moixa, with the flexibility procured used by UKPN to offset more costly grid reinforcements in constrained areas of the network.
The Piclo platform creates a heat-map of areas of congestion, correlating them with providers of flexibility with resources such as demand side response, battery storage and behind-the-meter generation. Network operators can then contract this capacity to minimise these bottlenecks.
The auction was first announced in May this year, with details to follow “in due course”, and following its success, UKPN has now handed Piclo an ongoing commercial contract, the tech company’s second such contract having secured a similar arrangement with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks earlier this year.
James Johnston, chief executive and co-founder at Piclo, said the company was thrilled from the results of its first auction, realised after “years of trials and ongoing development”.
Recent Comments