Anesco has agreed to give up half the demand capacity at its Larport battery storage facility in Herefordshire on winter evenings, in exchange for a reduction in the charge levied by WPD, the local distribution network operator (DNO).

The battery storage plant has 19.5MW of import and export capacity. Under the new arrangement, on winter weekday evenings it will relinquish 10MW of that import, in exchange for a reduction in DNO charges estimated at 25%. Networks have been encouraged to look at flexibility options that see customers paid to vary their demand at peak times, which may be a cheaper option than reinforcing the network. That has moved towards a competitive process (and generally calls for flexibility in demand or supply, not capacity). DNO capacity charges are set in accordance with the EHV Distribution Charging Methodology (EDCM). Anesco said its deal followed the EDCM, adding, “This is the first agreement of its kind for WPD and is available to other customers”.

Simon Yeo, income manager for WPD said: “This approach benefits both Anesco and WPD’s wider customer base in providing long term network security while reducing the need and cost for additional network reinforcement”.

Anesco already has an agreement with Flexitricity to use the storage at Larport to trade in flexibility markets. Anesco says it worked with Flexitricity to evaluate the impact of the WPD contractl, which was relatively small because Flexitricity’s usage tends to fall outside the periods covered by the new deal.

The deal has been struck for a year but may be extended.  Anesco said, “This is the first year we have done this and the first agreement of this type we have entered into, so the results are yet to be seen. However, our modelling has forecast this to be a commercially beneficial project for Anesco.”