SSE will use Origami Energy’s platform to deliver flexibility services to industrial and commercial customers.
The deal was announced this morning following a competitive tender.
SSE will use the technology to underpin its virtual power plant (VPP), whereby lots of distributed resources – including flexible load and generation at customer sites – are aggregated together to act in the same way as a power station.
VPPs allow suppliers to make money in contracted flexibility markets (via National Grid, and increasingly, through distribution network operators, which pay companies to help balance national and local grids) and in wholesale and balancing markets.
Industrial and commercial companies can earn money from providing these services, with suppliers and aggregators looking for the best returns for flexible megawatts at any one time. This may be in the within-day or day ahead wholesale markets, in the balancing mechanism, or in contracted products, such as frequency response. The key to making the best returns and making flex provision worthwhile for businesses, is putting the flexible megawatts into the right place at the right time.
SSE plans to use Origami’s platform to do that in real-time, and will run some of its own generation assets through the platform.
“Flexibility is an increasingly valuable part of the GB electricity market and SSE is delighted to be working with Origami Energy as we deliver our new SSE VPP product,” said Finlay McCutcheon, director of SSE Business Energy. “We believe Origami Energy’s technology … will help us provide significant value to our customers.”
Origami CEO, Peter Bance (pictured), said the deal “validates” its technology, which will enable SSE to “deliver more valuable customer propositions, unlocking value for large numbers of owners and operators of dispatchable generation, battery storage and flexible loads”.
SSE joins Smartest Energy in using Origami’s flex platform following a deal struck earlier this year.
Interested in flexibility and demand-side response? Download the Energyst’s DSR Report, free of charge, here.
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Origami raises £18.6m plans to go global
Smartest Energy to use Origami’s platform to optimise assets
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