Electric vehicles to be part of Moixa virtual power plant

Moixa is to create a virtual power plant (VPP) linking solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles in hundreds of homes, schools and council buildings.

The company, which is part of a consortium that has secured £13 million from the Government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to show how cutting-edge power, heating and transport technologies can work together to cut energy bills, reduce carbon emissions, and help manage the electricity system more efficiently, says the technology could cut energy costs by 10%

Moixa’s VPP will be the first operational element of a smart local energy system (SLES) around Worthing and Shoreham-By-Sea, West Sussex, which will also include a marine source heat pump and combined heat and power system, a grid-scale battery using second-life electric car batteries, air source heat pumps supporting domestic boilers and a hybrid refuelling station supporting electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Chris Wright, chief technology officer at Moixa, said: “This project will show how solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles at home and in the workplace can play a vital role in creating a smart, low-carbon, energy system, cutting energy bills, saving the country billions and helping to meet our climate targets.

“It will demonstrate the benefits of linking power, heat and transport in one local system and showcase UK expertise in an emerging global smart grid market.”

Moixa will use £7.2 million of the project budget to create the UK’s largest mixed asset VPP aggregating up to 2MW of capacity and the first to use batteries from a range of manufacturers in combination with electric vehicles plugged into the network.

It will be integrated with other smart technologies, once they are operational, to form a VPP with 17MW of capacity, managed by Flexitricity.

Moixa’s GridShare platform will aggregate more than 1MW of spare capacity from batteries in homes, schools and council offices providing a range of services to National Grid, energy companies and energy distribution networks.

Once electric vehicles are fully integrated into the VPP they will be capable of providing a further 1MW.

From autumn 2019, Moixa will begin installing solar panels and batteries in 250 homes in Worthing and Shoreham-by-Sea and 100 schools and council buildings in the area, offering a combined 4MW of generation and 4.2MWh of storage.

GridShare will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to tailor their performance to customers’ needs and maximise their savings.

From early 2020, Moixa will also install 250 electric vehicle chargers in homes and in clusters at strategic locations such as council depots and schools.

When electric vehicles are plugged in the V2X (vehicle-to-everything) chargers will allow their batteries to be used to power homes and offices or export electricity onto the network at times of peak demand.