Cloud-aggregated virtual power plants using residential or C&I battery storage as part of a smart energy management system can benefit the grid, integrate renewables and EVs and hopefully add a powerful long-term value proposition for home storage. Andy Colthorpe and David Pratt report on how some of the UK’s first VPP projects are proving the concept.
UK Power Reserve, a British developer of flexible electricity assets, has confirmed that battery storage solutions from Fluence will be used to build out its entire 120MW portfolio of projects.
Installations of sonnen’s latest hybrid battery storage units are underway, alongside new residential solar arrays, as part of a Local Energy Market (LEM) being built by one of the UK’s largest energy companies to test the capabilities of a virtual marketplace of distributed energy resources.
Gore Street, the UK’s first listed fund targeting energy storage specifically, has acquired two battery storage projects from Origami Energy, taking its portfolio to 29MW across four projects.
Food wholesaler Philip Dennis Foodservice has installed energy storage units totalling over 4MW at one of its UK offices in an effort to generate revenue from grid services, rather than making savings from behind-the-meter activity.
Scotland’s first utility-scale battery storage facility has been officially opened today, having begun delivering sub-second balancing services to National Grid at the end of June under a bespoke agreement secured before the hotly contested Enhanced Frequency Response (EFR) auction of 2016.
Leclanché has been selected by a new UK electric vehicle (EV) charging network to support the roll-out of hundreds of EV chargers by limiting their impact on the grid with energy storage units.
Tesla’s former EMEA vice-present has taken on an advisory role for Solo Energy as the company seeks to build out its vision of a virtual power plant driven by residential and commercial battery systems.
One of the UK’s main distribution network operators (DNOs) has unveiled plans to revolutionise the way it procures flexibility and “supercharge” the services market.
Battery assets have been used in the UK’s Balancing Mechanism for the first time via a virtual power plant, marking the start of what could be a new era for energy storage business models in Britain.
