Flexitricity has landed almost £500k of government funding in order to try and bring smaller companies – and smaller sites of larger companies – into demand-side response (DSR).
Most aggregators have traditionally focused on larger companies with megawatt scale load and generation assets due to cost of sales and market entry. National Grid’s systems and procurement are also heavily skewed towards larger assets, making it difficult to bring in smaller assets, sites and businesses.
However, the aggregator’s Quickturn project, where Flexitricity is partnering with the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Digital Communications, aims to improve communication speed and reliability and reduce the overall cost of setting up DSR dispatch systems.
Flexitricity chief strategy officer, Alastair Martin, said that “small businesses and eventually households will have a vital role to play in the long-term management of our energy system”.
“The funding we’ve secured for this project will allow us to develop a cost and time effective solution that fits the requirements of National Grid as well as small sites,” he added.
The Quicktrun trial will commence in the first half of next year.
Other aggregators, such as Upside Energy and start-up GridImp, are also trying to bring small firms into DSR.
Related stories:
Upside Energy: Small scale DSR is actually easier than large stuff
Kiwi Power boss: forget small scale DSR until we get the big stuff right
Flexitricity to become supplier, eyes Balancing Mechanism prize
Should Ofgem consider derating DSR plus storage? Aggregators weigh in
Alastair Martin: Capacity market ‘buying the wrong stuff because it is joined up with nothing’
Flexitricity chief: UK has enough spare capacity to electrify every car on the road
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