Flexitricity's control room in Edinburgh, from which the asset is to be optimised. Image: Flexitricity.
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has signed another optimisation deal, this time with Flexitricity for its 50MW/75MWh Thurcroft site.
Flexitricity is to provide market access, monitoring the lithium-ion asset located in South Yorkshire from Flexitricity’s control room in Edinburgh.
It is to be moved between different markets to optimise the revenue, with Thurcroft to be traded in the wholesale markets as well as in the Balancing Mechanism. In April, Flexitricity became the first Virtual Lead Party to trade in the Balancing Mechanism after wider access agreements were brought in to give smaller providers access.
Alongside being traded in the Balancing Mechanism, Thurcroft will also provide other services such as frequency response.
“Flexibility is a hugely important part of decarbonising the grid and batteries are an excellent source of flexibility,” Andy Lowe, director at Flexitricity, said.
“While the value is there, extracting it isn’t easy – it requires a high level of expertise and the right technology, people and algorithms.”
Gresham has made optimisation agreements with Flexitricity in the past, as well as with a number of other companies. It signed a deal with Habitat Energy for the optimisation of 74MW of battery storage in January, as well as partnering KiWi Power for the optimisation of its 15MW Lockleaze battery in 2019.
Ben Guest, managing director at Gresham House New Energy, said: "The UK has an ambition to achieve net zero by 2050 and it is our aim to contribute to this meaningfully, while achieving strong returns for our investors.
"We divide our storage projects between a range of optimisation partners and decided to entrust Flexitricity with Thurcroft having worked with them on our Noriker Staunch project.”
The company has also made a number of acquistions recently, including a 50MW battery storage project near Wickham Market in Suffolk. In April, the company said it was looking to continue making acquistions, with plans to increase its portfolio by nearly 200MW over the course of 2020, taking the operational portfolio to 360MW.