The greatest value aggregrators putting batteries and other assets in the UK’s electricity markets offer to their customers today is in providing access to the Balancing Mechanism (BM), through which the electricity system operator National Grid ESO matches supply and demand in real-time.

UK battery asset operator and optmiser Habitat Energy has become the second such company to put battery energy storage into the Balancing Mechanism, the means by which the country’s tranmissionoperator manages the supply and demand of electricity on a half-hourly basis.

Algorithms for the control and optimisation of assets including batteries can be an energy trader’s best friend – nearly all of the time. Aaron Lally, managing partner at UK-based clean tech trading house, VEST Energy, explains why it’s good to know when to switch from automation to human-controlled trading.

The UKs largest council-owned battery storage site, the 30MW Fideoak Mill site, is now fully operational and able to participate in delivering multiple revenue-generating services.

Industry voices in the UK have said that electricity market activity during the COVID-19 pandemic shows that the network will become prohibitively expensive and possibly unmanageable without the further rapid deployment of energy storage.

The UK government has confirmed changes to the Capacity Market which are designed to remove barriers for demand side response (DSR) and energy storage, making it easier for clean technologies to compete in auctions.

Battery software company Arenko has teamed up with National Grid ESO to provide upward and downward reserve flexibility in a “first of its kind trial”.

Batteries are to be used for reactive power services for the UK grid as part of a ‘world-first’ project to create a new reactive power market for distributed energy resources.

The projects developed through the state’s solar-plus-storage incentive programme are set to produce 11.2MWdc of energy, backed by 10.2MWh of storage.

Centrica and sonnen have completed a virtual power plant (VPP) project in the south of England, which will allow customers to maximise the potential of their solar panels while providing flexibility to the grid.