Gore Street Capital: Successful partnership to generate revenue from battery storage and support the renewable energy revolution

Breach Farm is one of Gore Street Capital's lithium-ion battery sites, and it contributes 10MW towards Flexitricity's growing virtual power plant.

The above video was filmed when the Larport Farm site was owned by Anesco. It has since been purchased by Gore Street Capital. 

"Since starting working together we have been impressed with Flexitricity’s overall level of service for the two systems managed on our behalf. Energy storage is necessary to facilitate the projected increase in renewable generation due to growing intermittency introduced to the system, and we recognise the Flexitricity team’s deep understanding around battery storage which has facilitated the optimisation of revenue opportunities available to us to-date. 

As we anticipate the market’s continued growth trajectory and expansion into additional income streams, we will continue to leverage the team’s capabilities in helping us to achieve our goals."

John-Michael Cheshire, Principal at Gore Street Capital

National Grid highlights energy storage as a key growth area and estimates that as much as 30GW installed capacity could be required by 2050. This creates a hugely lucrative opportunity for investors and developers.

Flexitricity services

Flexitricity optimises Gore Street Capital’s 19.5MW Larport Farm battery and their 10MW Breach Farm battery from our 24/7 control room in Edinburgh. The batteries deliver frequency response services to National Grid, and are also traded in the day ahead and intraday energy markets, and directly with National Grid in the Balancing Mechanism.

Flexitricity brings market-leading expertise in frequency response, having been the first company to make aggregated flexibility available for frequency response in 2012.

In addition, Flexitricity also offers a 24/7 energy trading optimisation service and access to the Balancing Mechanism - one of the most important tools which National Grid uses to balance electricity supply and demand in real-time.

This service is available as part of our energy supply contract or now also as a standalone service through Balancing Mechanism Wider Access. 

Customer benefits

Maximising revenue from battery storage can be challenging and requires a high level of expertise. Flexitricity manages the assets dynamically, keeping agile in our approach to ensure that the batteries move between different services and revenue streams, allowing Gore Street Capital to maximise revenue and return for investors.

Daniel Burke, Asset Manager at Gore Street Capital, noted:

“Flexitricity’s proactive approach to market entry and optimisation has been a real asset for us in monetising the energy storage systems at Breach Farm and Larport Farm. The storage industry is challenging, not only for technical management of the systems but also for market entry revenue optimisation. As the renewables industry grows, the need for ancillary services and balancing actions both grows and adapts.

Flexitricity has demonstrated in practice that it will be an early adopter of new revenue streams: they have the technical understanding of how to operate complex energy storage systems, whilst also having a deep understanding of the market and revenue opportunities. We have experienced this first hand by the early adoption of Dynamic Containment with National Grid. We have confidence in the Flexitricity team to maintain this track record.”

Flexitricity has been monetising Gore Street assets in Dynamic Containment since Q4 2020. In early 2021, Gore Street also benefited from Flexitricity’s expertise in the trading markets by withdrawing from Dynamic Containment to capture price spikes in the wholesale trading markets. This agility in optimisation significantly boosted the financial performance of the asset during the volatile wholesale market conditions experienced in Q1 2021.

Next steps

Energy storage has a growing role to play on the system and the market is set to continue to grow rapidly. Gore Street Capital intends to lead the way and is planning on developing more and larger battery storage projects.

“Gore Street Capital is a market leader for energy storage in the UK. The company now has 210MW of battery energy storage systems in operation and a pipeline of shovel-ready and funded sites set to expand this significantly in the near future. The team is increasingly focused on larger systems and is set for continued rapid growth as the industry grows”.

All performance claims made within this testimonial, both technical and financial, were true at time of writing. Claims relating to past performance of certain asset classes do not represent a guarantee of future results for assets in the same class or other asset types