Friday 19 December 2014

Community energy makes the headlines

During the development of party manifestos in the run-up to a general election it is always interesting to see what energy policy statements are made by the major political parties.

This week Labour called for a ‘national community energy revolution’, which aims to shift power from the ‘Big Six’ energy companies to the ‘Big Six Thousand’ community energy projects supplying electricity directly to homes. The Shadow Energy Minister Caroline Flint said ‘Community Energy has huge potential for the future of our energy mix’. Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has previously championed Community energy stating that ‘We’re at a turning point in developing true community energy’. We previously wrote about Ed Davey’s comments on this blog. We look forward to seeing how, when or indeed whether community energy plans are acted on, following the 2015 General Election.

Our conference in January discusses how regulations should evolve to allow Community Energy to thrive, and how markets for Community Energy should develop. Speakers include Reg Platt from Ovo Energy, Merlin Hyman from, Regen SW, Christian Inglis from, Innovate UK and a representative from Open Utility. Please follow this link for more information.

Wednesday 10 December 2014

Christmas Lights


Do you have a neighbour who has covered their house in festive fairy lights for Christmas ? Where are they getting the electricity from to power those lights? Here in the Old Cakehouse we are demonstrating a Community Electricity Market and our Christmas tree’s fairy lights are trading directly with our 250 Wpeak solar panel. So our office looks festive at a fraction of the cost of buying from  a “Big Six" (or even small) supplier.

Even as we approach the shortest day our solar panel is currently generating 135 W, which is more than enough for our tiny marketplace.
If you and your neighbour had access to a Community Electricity Market, you could make and sell electricity together, powering and empowering your community, while saving money.
Merry Christmas!

Friday 26 September 2014

Community energy ice cream

Community energy, just like ice cream, seems nice to everyone, but it comes in a number of flavours. Some people have their own favourite flavour, but some just don't seem to care. The Rt Hon Ed Davey recently blessed the ice cream counter that is community energy, declaring that he was a big fan, and then proceeded to give his views on his particular favourite flavour.

Wednesday 27 August 2014

UK Financial Conduct Authority nudges community groups towards LEMs

UK Government says it’s keen to encourage localisation, including localising the provision of energy. The Government said, in its Community Energy Strategy of April 2014, that it sees a strong role for communities in helping the UK to meet energy and climate change challenges.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

EXSTORM results update: prices tracking abundance

EXSTORM's discrete-event simulation work continues to illuminate the behaviour of Local Energy Markets (LEMs), and of how free peer-to-peer markets (with energy prices set mutually between households or small businesses, in real time) work with different kinds of trading heuristic.

Monday 21 April 2014

Early EXSTORM results: performance of Generalized Derivative Follower price setting

The EXSTORM project is starting to deliver results. We've been running full-scale in silico simulations of local energy market trading, and testing the viability of different trading heuristics. For example, we've put a good deal of work into the possibilities of posted-price trading, and the various heuristics for setting offer-to-sell prices and buy-limit prices.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Community energy and local markets

 Pressure is mounting to improve the environmental credentials of our energy supply – and electricity is often taken as the place to start.  The number of community energy projects grows, and with good reason, for local generation and increased consumption can reduce transmission and distribution losses, as well as disrupting the business of the major energy suppliers and reducing their market share.  

Wednesday 19 February 2014

We're recruiting now

As we move into the next phase of our LEM concept development, we're looking for a software developer to build the software that bridges between advanced simulations and the first live LEM, here in our offices.
Could that be you?