Cornwall pioneers $24m local energy market for renewables

The Story

Energy services firm Centrica is building a $24.2 million “virtual energy marketplace” in Cornwall, a UK county, to relieve pressure on the national grid and help consumers save on energy bills.

In the three-year trial, Centrica will build a mini-network that can generate, sell and store its own power. The independent power market will provide some 160 homes and businesses with clean energy and allow them to sell their excess into the grid. Centrica, which owns British Gas, has begun looking for participants for the pilot, which will launch later in 2017.

“By creating opportunities for homes and businesses to generate and store their own energy, and providing them with a simple route to market, we believe we can help both relieve pressure on the local grid and save – or potentially even make – local people money as a reward for being more flexible with how and when they use energy,” said Lisa Poole, the UK Director of Public Affairs and Policy at Centrica.

Centrica aims to test flexible energy demand and the impact of a decentralised energy model, in which energy is generated and managed locally. With local grids, Centrica hopes to reduce the burden on the national grid, support renewable energy and avoid expensive upgrades to the existing network.

“Cornwall has made huge strides in terms of their take-up of renewable generation, but that has brought challenges in terms of network capacity. This means that the network has a queue of renewable generation programs with high associated grid connection costs,” said Poole. The pilot will allow Cornwall to continue developing its local renewable energy market.

The 160 homes and businesses involved in the trial will receive free energy audits and smart technology upgrades (hence the term “virtual” marketplace), including battery units, micro-scale combined heat and power systems and energy storage units, which will cost an estimated $1 million. Once the upgrades are installed, the participants will be connected to a marketplace that allows them to sell their excess energy both to the grid and the wholesale energy market. The buying and selling can be done automatically, making the process simple for home and business owners.

“Once the installations have been completed, we anticipate that homeowners will be typically looking for us to automate the process as much as possible, while a business might need or want more control,” said Poole.

In addition to Cornwall Council, Centrica is working with Western Power Distribution, which will support the development of a new energy services platform that promotes energy-flexible procurement. The University of Exeter will provide a full-time research fellow to work on the pilot, and the National Grid is helping Centrica coordinate between existing energy-flexible arrangements and its new local energy market. The European Union’s Regional Development Fund contributed $16.5 million to the project. Centrica and British Gas will provide the remainder of the funding.

The pilot is the first of its kind in the UK. Centrica will open a Truro, Cornwall-based office and hire a team of 23 employees to help establish the energy marketplace. Centrica hopes the project will support economic growth in the region.

Five years ago, renewable energy accounted for less than a tenth of the United Kingdom’s power generation – now, it makes up a quarter of UK energy.

(Picture credit: Flickr/Chris Combe)