Home rooftop PV + battery storage will bring 4.5GW of flexible capacity to the UK

Schematic diagram of Centricas' local energy market trial in the west of England. Image: Centrica

Centrica has invested in two leading energy technology companies as it targets a more focused domestic energy flexibility business.

The company is investing aggressively to help it capitalise on the potential of more than 4.5GW of flexible power capacity in the UK, as well as its home energy management business, a market it expects to be worth more than £2 billion ($2.58 billion) a year by 2025.

Centrica Innovations, the business unit set up two years ago to invest in cutting-edge technologies, has today announced that it will invest in GreenCom Networks, a provider of home energy management solutions, and Mixergy, a provider of smart hot water technology.

GreenCom Networks has developed an energy Internet of Things (IoT) platform that allows consumers to reduce their energy consumption, increase demand flexibility and sell surplus electricity during times of high demand.

GreenCom’s “energy information brokerage platform” is based in Germany and describes itself as the “foundation” for energy companies’ future service portfolios.

The company has extensive experience in the telecoms market, and GreenCom chief executive Christian Feisst said Centrica's experience in customer-facing businesses would help it bring innovative services to market.

Centrica Innovations estimates that the home energy management market in Europe and North America could be worth up to £2 billion per year by 2025, accelerating the transition to a smarter, more decentralised energy system.

The energy giant has built out its Connected Home business unit, centered around its Hive portfolio. Centrica has deployed more than 1 million connected home hubs around the world, and in the first half of 2018, total revenue from Centrica Connected Home grew 31%.

Centrica also revealed the future direction of the industry this morning, pointing to the potential for rooftop solar, battery storage and domestic heat pumps to be integrated into its existing customer offerings.

It also suggests that integrating local battery storage units with rooftop solar installations (which number more than 800,000 units) could provide more than 4.5GW of flexible power capacity.

The investment is a major step forward for the company, whose second investment was in Mixergy, a subsidiary of the University of Oxford's Energy and Power Group in the UK.

Sam Salisbury, director of Centrica Innovations Labs, said the investments were an “important step” in enabling new technologies to be combined with each other and ensure energy was used in the “most efficient way”.

“Our mission is to make people’s lives easier and help them save money by providing services that are seamless, time-saving, easy to use and have a positive impact on the environment. Just as we do for our commercial customers, Home Energy Management will go a step further and provide these customers with new products that allow them to generate and store their own energy and ultimately become part of a ‘smart home’.”

Centrica is the largest natural gas supplier in the UK and one of the largest electricity service companies in the world.

(Original source: Energy Storage News New Energy Network Comprehensive)