Improving reliability and turning 'deadweight' assets into revenue earners

National Grid has a growing need for flexible generators that can respond more quickly than large power stations, and without long, fuel-hungry start and stop sequences. Standby diesel generators are ideal for this role, and can earn substantial revenue while helping to secure the national electricity supply.

Flexitricity uses its smart-grid system to turn standby generators around the UK into an aggregated, low-carbon source of reserve electricity for National Grid. In return, generator owners receive several benefits: 

• New revenue is earned using existing assets.
• The majority of the revenue comes from availability payments, paid regardless of the amount of running, and is therefore predictable.
• STOR running is typically similar to a good-practice generator test and exercise regime, and substitutes many elements of it.
• The reliability of the site’s emergency power supply is dramatically enhanced.   
• Flexitricity remotely monitors key aspects of standby generator health. 

Running a generator for Flexitricity directly contributes to the generating equipment’s reliability, as it ‘exercises’ the generator under loaded conditions, and eliminates damaging practices such as off-load testing. Connecting these assets to Flexitricity’s smart grid can significantly reduce the risk that a standby generator fails to deliver during a power cut.

Flexitricity’s system is fully automatic, so our clients’ staff don’t have to spend time looking after it; Flexitricity operators constantly monitor equipment whenever it is available to National Grid. Flexitricity understands that core business processes must always be protected, so in a power cut a client’s generators will supply the site as they should.