What we offer
Asset optimisation and trading
Habitat Energy provide optimisation and trading services to owners of battery storage and other flexible energy assets. We focus primarily on grid-scale assets, transmission or distribution connected, typically 10 megawatts and above that are pursuing a merchant business model, buying and selling power in the Day Ahead, Intraday and Balancing markets. These operations can be supplemented with other revenue streams including embedded benefits and ancillary services contracts with the System Operator such as Firm Frequency Response (FFR).
We offer a full end-to-end service, spanning
- physical communication with the asset via API link, mod bus or other protocols
- proprietary real-time forecasting of market prices and volumes
- dispatch optimisation to deliver the highest possible revenue from the physical operation of the asset
- continuous asset re-optimisation, unwinding and rebalancing positions to generate additional revenue from financial trades
- full route-to-market and trade execution
- reporting and settlement
Our unique approach
Unlike traditional aggregators, we are not looking to create a Virtual Power Plant by joining together flexibility from many small sources; rather, we see each asset as a unique combination of physical capability (eg efficiency, duration), constraints (eg warranty, temperature), owner preferences (eg risk limits), offering a fully bespoke trading strategy that takes these individual features into account.
Our objective is to optimise the lifetime value of our client’s asset, not just maximising revenue but also carefully managing degradation to preserve asset life and minimise O&M costs. As such we look to form close partnerships with our clients, sharing information and supporting decision making on choices such as timing of battery cell replacement or ancillary service contracting strategy.
Technologies covered
Our capability set is best suited to flexible assets where short-term (24-48 hour) forecasting is key to maximising revenue. These include:
- Utility scale storage, typically lithium ion systems with 30 minute to 2 hour duration, front-of-meter, distribution or transmission connected with 11kV or higher voltage
- Longer duration systems such as pumped hydro and flow batteries
- Storage co-located with solar or wind generation and sharing a grid connection. Here we can optimise both the storage and the renewable generation under a combined PPA
- Behind-the-meter storage systems, typically commercial and industrial scale of 1-5MW
- Gas peakers
Geographic coverage
Geographically we are currently focused on Great Britain, but also entering the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) while looking selectively at other opportunities in North America, Europe and emerging markets.
PowerIQ is Habitat Energy’s proprietary trading platform that combines algorithmic forecasting and optimisation with our experienced team of prompt traders and asset optimisers.
The PowerIQ platform sends physical instructions to the asset, trade instructions to the power markets, while recording and reporting a broad suite of performance and revenue data for each asset that is fully transparent to the asset owner via the cloud.
PowerIQ is actively trading assets today and we are happy to provide a demonstration of the capability and performance. We have more than 130 MW of battery storage assets committed to the platform and onboarding in coming months.
For more information about our optimisation services and how we could help you, please contact:
Dr Ben Irons
Co-founder, Director
ben.irons@habitat.energy
+64 21 502 816
Chris McLeod Portfolio optimiser, originator chris.mcleod@habitat.energy
Project design and revenue simulation
Because Habitat Energy’s optimisation approach is primarily algorithmic (rule based), we can realistically simulate how a planned asset would operate and what revenue it would generate, providing exactly the information needed to help developers and investors make important design and financing decisions at the early stages of the project lifecycle.
This includes:
- Site selection, including impact of DNO and embedded benefit zone, voltage, import/export limits and other factors
- Asset selection including battery manufacturer and duration
- Degradation modelling, warranty design and asset life estimation
- Revenue and cycling rate estimation for input into third party financial models and long term market forecasts
Our bespoke revenue simulations for new build battery projects have been used to support design and investment decisions many of the UK’s biggest development portfolios since 2018. Our expert team are available to advise on these topics for developers and investors that are looking to use our optimisation services when assets are constructed.
ProjectIQ is Habitat Energy’s online simulation and design tool for battery storage. It allows users to enter their own site-specific details and assumptions for an existing or planned asset and determine at the click of a button the revenue that Habitat Energy’s optimisation strategy would be capable of delivering for an existing or virtual battery storage asset in today’s market conditions and how the project should be configured.
ProjectIQ currently covers both stand-alone storage and co-located solar plus storage in the UK market. For solar plus storage projects, the tool can determine the optimal sizing of solar and storage assets relative to the grid connection.
For more information about project design support and revenue simulation, please contact:
Dr Ben Irons
Co-founder, Director
ben.irons@habitat.energy
+64 21 502 816
Dr Duncan Fraser Lead data scientist
