United States
Australia
Generation project: Infinis Kirkby-in-Ashfield Gas Peaking Plant
Capacity: 6MW
Location: Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire
Product/Participation: Wholesale Market Optimisation; Short Term Operating Reserve (STOR)
Customer since: 2010
“SmartestEnergy’s Managed Flexibility service ensures that we are making the most of our flexible generation capacity, as well as contributing to security of supply for the UK. The asset optimisation team worked with us to deliver an optimisation strategy that focused on monetising our peakers across multiple revenue opportunities. We were impressed by the technology platform and how it enables SmartestEnergy’s trading and markets team to match assets with opportunities in the market.” – Jon Crouch, Head of Commercial Development
The opportunity:
As well as being one of the UK’s leading independent generators, Infinis is playing a growing role in supporting the transition to a smarter and more flexible energy system.
By converting former landfill gas and coalmine methane generation sites to operate on alternative fuels, they can provide highly responsive standby power through the local distribution network.
Growth at the company’s Power Response Division has accelerated following its 2018 acquisition of Alkane Energy, a long-standing customer of SmartestEnergy. The acquisition provided a pipeline of site conversion opportunities as well as new developments.
As landfill gas and coalmine methane sites naturally decline, Infinis is able to convert the sites by using existing infrastructure and repower the engines to operate on alternative fuels.
The results:
The first of Infinis’ sites to operate under SmartestEnergy’s Managed Flexibility service was their 6MW plant at Kirkby-in-Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, which went live on our asset optimisation platform in October 2018. Since then, then Infinis have also contracted their Hem Heath (1.8WM) and Calverton (2.6MW) plants under our Managed Flexibility service to leverage additional flexibility capacity.
Using a sophisticated technology portal, the service monitors the availability of flexible assets in real time and SmartestEnergy’s dedicated in-house ssset trading team analyse the commercial opportunities for these assets 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The Managed Flexibility service ensures that production is optimised to benefit from revenue opportunities from wholesale electricity markets, short-term operating reserve (STOR) contracts with National Grid and Triads.
Future outlook:
Infinis’ Power Response Division is responsible for a portfolio of sites, which will benefit from this Managed Flexibility service in the future. In conjunction with their site conversion works, there is a pipeline of additional flexibility opportunities on the horizon.