Page 21 - ESJ – ENERGY STORAGE JOURNAL

NEWS — VIRTUAL POWER PLANTS

Project to create biggest

mixed asset VPP in the UK

Energy storage firm Moixa consortium of UK technol-
announced plans on April ogy firms and organiza-
18 to create 17MW of tions that has secured £13
virtual power plant capac- million ($17 million) from
ity in the UK using smart the Industrial Strategy
technologies including bat- Challenge Fund. Moixa
teries and electric vehicles. will use £7.2 million of the
The first stage of the pro- project budget for this pro-
ject in the county of Sussex ject.
will involve Moixa creat- The project assets will in-
ing the UK’s largest mixed clude a marine source heat
asset VPP, aggregating up pump and combined heat
to 2MW of capacity using and power system; grid-
batteries from a range of scale energy storage using
manufacturers in combina- second-life electric car bat-
tion with EVs plugged into How Moixa’s Gridshare platform works teries; a hybrid refuelling
the power network. station serving electric and
Once operational, the mand-response company storage systems to homes, hydrogen vehicles; and air
UK firm will integrate oth- Flexitricity. schools and council build- source heat pumps sup-
er smart technologies to The firm will supply its ings as well as 250 EV porting domestic boilers.
form a VPP with 17MW of residential, 4.8kWh lithi- chargers. The project should be
capacity, managed by de- um iron phosphate energy The project is part of a completed in 2022.

VPP trial to test operational capabilities

of DER on Australian energy market

Power and gas organization lect data to inform changes within the market could “VPPs have an important
Australian Energy Market to regulatory settings and maximize the benefit to role to play in harnessing
Operator is set to run a operational processes. consumers and to the pow- the collective potential of
trial VPP integration pro- AEMO forecasts the er system. consumer owned energy
ject after receiving A$2.46 scale of VPP capacity to He said: “This trial will assets like rooftop solar,
million ($1.7 million) from rise from 5MW-10MW to allow us to learn how to batteries, smart appliances
the Australian Renewable 700MW by 2022. better integrate larger scale and electric vehicle charg-
Energy Agency, the agency ARENA CEO Darren VPPs in the coming years as ing. VPPs could see vast
announced on April 5. Miller said the ability to we transition to a more de- improvements in the relia-
AEMO will run the trial test how VPPs operate centralized energy system. bility of the network.”
over a 12-18 month period
to demonstrate the opera-
tional capabilities of VPPs Energy blockchain pioneer Electron
to deliver frequency control
ancillary services, system receives investment from utility OVO
security and deliver local
network support services. Grid technology firm The deal is the first and an investor. Electron
The VPP portfolio con- Kaluza, the intelligent strategic investment for co-founder Jo-Jo Hubbard
sists of distributed energy energy technologies Kaluza, which develops moves from COO to CEO.
resources including roof- subsidiary of power and manages software The deal comes a month
top solar, batteries and utility OVO, announced and hardware to support after OVO announced
controllable behind-the- on March 12 it had the integration of electric Mitsubishi Corporation
meter loads. secured a minority stake vehicles, electric heating had taken a 20% stake in
Existing pilot scale VPPs in blockchain start- and battery storage on to the business.
around Australia, including up Electron. the grid. OVO will use the
the ARENA-funded AGL Electron will use the The deal means that proceeds to expand into
and Simply Energy pilot investment to accelerate Paul Massara will be new markets across
scale VPPs in South Aus- the development and stepping down as CEO Europe and Asia Pacific
tralia, have been invited to deployment of its energy but will remain involved and accelerate the
take part. platforms and systems. in Electron as an adviser development of Kaluza.
The organization will col-

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