Network Infrastructure businesses should see energy storage as a way to improve customer service, to lower operating costs and to reduce their impact on the environment.
Zenobe brings its expertise in the use of energy storage to transform the way network infrastructure businesses operate. This often results in significantly better customer service, lower costs and improved environmental performance – important for businesses such as rail networks, power grids and water utilities that provide essential services to so many of us.
Our technical experts work closely with client teams to come up with tailored storage solutions that can then be rolled out across a large number of sites. At both an individual and portfolio level, this delivers rapid results with no capital expenditure required by Zenobe’s clients. Our approach can deliver large financial and environmental savings with a greater speed and flexibility than traditional network solutions.
Case study
Context
The water sector has committed to achieving net zero by 2030 and is facing ever tougher power resilience and environmental standards by Ofwat, the regulator.
United Utilities, the UK’s largest listed water company in North West England with seven million customers, intends to be a leader in achieving the highest environmental standards whilst providing value for money for its customers.
Together Zenobe Energy and United Utilities chose the Clifton Marsh Wastewater Treatment site at Preston to demonstrate how battery storage can deliver these objectives.
Approach
Using its inhouse team of analysts, Zenobe modelled how to optimise the characteristics of the site. This included capturing any excess solar power on site to release at times of higher power prices, generating revenue from balancing services, saving costs through peak shaving and improving resilience thanks to a 2MW battery solution.
Zenobe has provided this capability as a managed service – designing, sourcing, financing, constructing and maintaining the battery over the 15 year life of the contract. Since the benefits are shared between Zenobe and United Utilities, the commercial strategy is jointly developed and regularly reviewed. Zenobe uses its own proprietary software to manage the asset and integrates this battery into its own 75MW portfolio of batteries in the UK when appropriate.
The result reduces operational costs and risks at the site, as well as reducing CO2 emissions, with no upfront Capex or the hassle of managing what is a complex asset working in a rapidly changing market.
Case study 2
Context
National Grid, Great Britain’s Electricity System Operator (ESO), needs rapid and reliable delivery of reserve power to manage the frequency. One way in which this is achieved is through large power generators in the Fast Reserve market who need to deliver at least 50MW of active power in under two minutes.
Our approach
Zenobe’s team of data scientists and software developers created software and hardware capabilities to connect our portfolio of batteries to the ESO. This means that the System Operator can deploy at least 50MW from Zenobe’s portfolio of storage assets onto the electricity network whenever there is a sudden drop in frequency, with each event lasting from a few seconds to several minutes.
While most providers of this service take nearly two minutes to respond, Zenobe can deliver over 50MW in under 10 seconds. This leap in performance stabilises the network much faster, enhancing system security and saving money. We are the only storage owner and operator capable of providing this service today.
For enquiries regarding Utilities and Infrastructure, please email contact@zenobe.com or call +44 (0)20 3912 7853
