GridBeyond is to optimise Greencoat Renewables’s first energy storage project. This 10.8MW front-of-the-meter battery is co-located with the Killala Community Wind Farm in Tawnaghmore Upper, Ireland and is expected to be online early next year.
The agreement will see GridBeyond’s AI-powered Point platform connect the asset, allowing Greencoat Renewables to sell and purchase energy in wholesale markets as well as participate in grid balancing services and the Capacity Market.
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Point platform reviews and forecasts several markets like Day Ahead, Intra Day and the Balancing Mechanism, Mark Davis, managing director UK & Ireland at GridBeyond told our sister site Current±.
“The platform increases asset profitability by recommending exact bids and offers for each market while also taking into account specific asset parameters and warranty, grid connection and grid service specification,” Davis continued.
Effective management of storage assets is particularly important currently, given the turbulence in the wholesale energy market. A global gas shortage, combined with a number of generation outages and low wind speeds in September caused day-ahead prices to hit £1,675.30/MWh for EPEX and £1,750/MWh for Nordpool for Tuesday 14.
“The recent extreme price events in the wholesale markets could be a sign of more volatility to come,” said Mark Davis
“Managed effectively this volatility can also present opportunity, and GridBeyond’s Point platform allows our customers to trade on every opportunity, fully supported by our trading team, 24/7 network operations centre (NOC), and smart trading capabilities, all underpinned by data science and AI.”
GridBeyond currently operates in the UK, Ireland and Texas’ ERCOT market in the US, as well as expanding into Japan thanks to a Memorandum of Understanding with engineering company and EPC contractor Chiyoda Corporation in August.
“As the number of renewable energy investments is growing, driven by the decarbonisation agenda, the urgency to deploy greater volumes of fast-acting storage is becoming ever more present,” said Michael Phelan, CEO and co-founder at GridBeyond.
“AI-powered technologies do not only enable participation in energy trading and flexibility markets, but also support accurate forecasting of variable green generation, predictive maintenance, dynamic asset optimisation and imbalance management.”
The partnership with Greencoat follows hot on the heels of a deal with renewable energy generator Bryt Energy. It too will benefit from the company’s Point platform, optimising the value of the assets through trading and generation shifting to match consumption patterns.
“GridBeyond have invested heavily in a state of the art smart trading and network operations centre in conjunction with our core operation that manages the highest energy consuming assets on more than 500 sites across the UK and Ireland,” said Davis.
“This allows us to not only support Bryt Energy and their customers in terms of flexibility management and monetisation but also in respect of imbalance and the Balancing Mechanism. We have also developed a funded battery proposition that Bryt Energy can offer to their customers to support resilience and power quality issues that are now more regularly impacting many areas across the UK.”
Again GridBeyond pointed to the volatility in the energy market, and the challenges and opportunities it is creating for participants currently. This is driven by an increase in renewable generation at the same time as phasing out thermal generation, with 42% of the country’s electricity coming from renewables in 2020, for example.
“With a comprehensive suite of smart tools from an AI-based trading platform through smart forecasting built on layered data science to funded smart storage, GridBeyond provides solutions and opportunities for Bryt Energy’s current customers and supports their ambitious growth aspirations,” said Davis.
Our sister site Current± caught up with Phelan at the end of 2020 to discuss after the company announced it had laid down the work to became the first company to enable industrial and commercial (I&C) access to the lucrative Dynamic Containment mechanism in the UK.