New revenue sources for independent electricity generators

Flexitricity is not just for electricity users. The company’s award-winning innovations for small power stations are designed to increase revenue while still maximising annual generation.

Most Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and tri-generation stations are heat-led, generating their electricity when heat (or cooling) is needed. This means that the electricity is sold on a spill basis, which lessens its value. Opportunities to provide reserve electricity to National Grid are also missed.

However, many heating and cooling networks possess either natural thermal inertia, or heat stores. Flexitricity uses this storage to maximise the value of the CHP electricity, while still providing the same amount of heat or cooling.

It is well known that hydro power stations can be the most flexible generators of all. However, small hydro stations are usually unable to participate in flexible markets or reserve services, purely because of size.

Flexitricity’s smart grid aggregates small CHP and hydro generators, giving them the first opportunity to realise the value of their inherent flexibility. Flexitricity respect the process limits of small generators, and ensures that opportunities to generate are not missed.

Built into a business case at the start, Flexitricity’s approach can increase the viable size of CHP or hydro station for a given site.

As well as increasing the revenue to the generator, Flexitricity also enhances the CO₂ savings that embedded CHP and small hydro power stations already provide.