Power management specialist Flextricity could unlock significant revenue streams within UK industry, and help reduce Britain’s carbon footprint, by using a system that harnesses the hidden flexible capabilities of existing commercial energy assets, such as standby generators, electricity consuming equipment, combined heat and power generators and hydro generators.
Using its advanced aggregation technology, Flexitricity’s clientcan use their existing energy assets — such as standby power generators — to earn substantial revenues while contributing to the stability and reliability of the UK’s electricity supply.
Flexitricity has developed new ways of addressing imbalance between electricity supply to demand, thereby reducing energy costs and improving the overall environmental performance of the electricity industry. Flexitricity’s smart-grid technology turns on small generators or turns down the electricity consumption of clients’ sites when the national electricity system is under stress.
This brings new revenue and increased energy-asset reliability to UK businesses and reduces carbon emissions in the national electricity system. It also makes the generation of renewable energy much more viable, because it provides a vital, low-carbon backup to offset the variability associated with wind, wave and solar power generation.
Flextricity says the number of megawatts under its management climbs every month as the company signs up new clients. Flexitricity maintains it is already capable of replacing the output of virtually any of the UK’s on-shore wind farms, should one be disconnected in an emergency. It expects to grow large enough in 2011 to be able to replace one coal-fired power generator. Its next capacity milestone will give it capacity equivalent to the electricity consumption of a city the size of Manchester. At that point, Flexitricity says it expects to be reducing the UK electricity industry’s annual emissions of CO2 by at least 480,000 tonnes.
Stabilising electricity networks
“Flexitricity partners with the National Grid to stabilise and support electricity networks, by levering the assets of commercial energy users and small generator owners,” said Dr. Alastair Martin, Flexitricity founder and managing director. “This, in turn, opens up new revenues for those businesses and organisations. Those with standby generators also see an increase in the reliability of their equipment, and all our clients help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the country’s electricity system.
“The ‘smart grid’ is a key element of energy and environment strategy for the new UK coalition government, and Flexitricity can deliver on many of its key targets. UK carbon commitments might seem ambitious now, but there’s much more to come. Business energy users who are smart about their electricity use and generation are better placed to benefit from the drive for ever-higher energy and fiscal efficiency."
Martin maintains that Flexitricity’s aggregated reserve capacity can play a major part in addressing the critical challenges facing the UK’s future energy requirements,” He says: “By aggregating smaller electricity generators, we make it unnecessary to keep the older coal or oil-burning power generators operating inefficiently at part load or on hot standby. There is more than enough unexploited capacity in the hands of industrial and commercial energy users to provide all of the reserve electricity that National Grid requires until 2020 without building a single additional power station.”
One current user is ExCeL London, the massive 1,000,000 square feet Docklands conference centre. ExCeL Energy manager Chris Barnes said: “The Flexitricity deal allows us to provide electricity back onto the Grid and to provide us with a revenue for doing so. ExCeL is very keen to extend its green credentials, so anything that we can do is obviously a plus.
"When it first started, we used to watch the generators running every time, but now we just let them run and we know it’s going to happen because it is so well managed by Flexitricity.”
