Kaluza, the leader in intelligent energy platforms, has gone live with its new flexibility service to Western Power Distribution (WPD) using a range of smart home devices including V2G – a first in the UK.
Kaluza’s flexibility platform already provides a paid flex service to WPD through the intelligent optimisation of sonnenbatterie charging and discharging. Now, as part of WPD’s IntraFlex project, Kaluza is adding domestic electric vehicle (EV) smart charging and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) optimisation within a single, combined service across domestic storage and transport devices.
Kaluza’s flexibility platform will shift EV charging away from times of high demand, so the devices import energy when it is cheapest and greenest for end customers and the grid. In addition, the V2G chargers and sonnenbatteries will support the network with available export capacity to help the grid during high peaks in demand. Optimising a combination of domestic devices for flexibility has never previously been achieved and demonstrates the way forward to a scalable flex market at all levels of the energy system. The service also marks a milestone for domestic V2G chargers as Kaluza harnesses their collective power to provide local flexibility for the first time.
The service leverages Kaluza’s AI technology to provide a fully automated, machine-to-machine operation with no need for manual intervention. By integrating with NODES market, Kaluza’s flexibility platform can participate in NODES’ “ShortFlex” trading where flexibility is traded much closer to real time than the standard week or month-ahead timeframes. This offers superior accuracy when forecasting the availability of local flexibility and enables more effective use of flexible devices on a daily basis.
Conor Maher-McWilliams, Head of Flexibility at Kaluza commented: “Every day we take a step closer to realising a smarter energy system, but the launch of this service is a huge leap forward. While flexible, low carbon technologies become increasingly prevalent in people’s homes, there hasn’t been an effective way of coordinating charging across different types of devices to support grid balancing. This service changes that and will enable truly scalable flexibility so that millions of devices can store green and affordable energy in the future.”
