Renewable energy supplier Pure Planet has announced a new partnership with Lightsource Labs to use its energy management technology to unlock flexibility.
The two will offer a solar and battery storage solution for UK homes that utilises Lightsource Labs’ home energy management technology Tribe and cloud-based Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platform.
Tribe is made up of a hardware hub and a smartphone app, and allows residents to monitor, control and schedule a wide range of devices throughout their home, including solar inverters, batteries and electric vehicle chargers.
By managing devices as such, it can reduce energy costs by up to 20% said Lightsource Labs. This is on top of savings generated by the solar and battery system, with estimates modelled using 12 months’ data from existing Tribe customers in the UK, and based on a home with 4,000kWh of annual demand, a 4kWp PV system and a 6kWh battery, as well as a time-of-use tariff.
Pure Plant will look at how operating domestic solar and storage as a VPP can reduce energy supply costs, and support the grid by providing demand side response functions by optimising charge and discharge cycles of the battery storage systems. This will allow the VPP to play into new revenue streams from the grid and network operators such as flexibility contracts.
Additionally, Tribe will use machine-learning to automatically optimise the assets schemes in response to signals from Pure Planet.
Customers who choose to use Tribe will be eligible for a discount on the upfront cost of solar and battery storage. An initial trial of the VPP will be run this summer, with plans to scale up the offering from the two companies – both of which are backed by oil and gas major bp – from 2022 onwards, with a target of 1MW of flexible capacity deployed in members’ homes over the next two years.
The need for flexibility and smart energy management is growing as we move towards net zero said Ben Kott, CEO of Lightsource Labs.
“We are excited to partner with Pure Planet and their forward-thinking members to help accelerate the adoption of renewable technologies including solar PV and electric cars, and using our technology to unlock more value from distributed energy assets for all parties.”
The partnership follows Lightsource Labs signing its first commercial partnerships to deliver local flexibility using its VPP, announcing contracts with UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution at the beginning of this month.
Pure Planet meanwhile, announced a new tech partnership with bp in May, to rollout a platform that offers smarter control of renewable home energy, EVs, batteries, smart heating and solar power.
