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Piclo, a leading smart and flexible energy marketplace, today launches Piclo Exchange, the inaugural secondary trading marketplace for Capacity Market Providers. For the first time, Capacity Market Providers can register to find, buy and sell existing contracts with other qualified providers in a single place. In the Capacity Secondary Market alone, there have been almost 300 trades in each of the previous two delivery years, worth between £15m to £35m.
Piclo Exchange was developed as part of the BEIS FleX Exchange innovation trial, during which Piclo collaborated with the National Grid EMR team and Capacity Market Providers to understand barriers and help shape improvements to secondary trading in the Capacity Market, as it continues to evolve in response to Net Zero and the growing demand for flexible, clean power.
As well as providing additional value streams and revenue stacking opportunities on Piclo’s existing marketplace, Piclo Flex, Piclo Exchange will optimise participation by providing access to multiple flexibility markets (both ESO and DSO) via one interface. Piclo Exchange will make secondary trading opportunities visible and available in one place, streamline the process for trading agreements and deliver the best price through a competition auction.
Competitive secondary markets are an important feature of flexibility markets, providing security to those participating that if they needed or wanted to, they could trade away their obligations. Whilst the Piclo Exchange trial is focusing on Capacity Market secondary trading, in future the marketplace could be applied to other secondary markets, such as DSO flexibility markets.
James Johnston, CEO and co-founder, said: “Piclo Exchange is an industry-first and will directly contribute to creating a more transparent and effective secondary market in the Capacity Market. Previously, a lack of visibility in the process for CM secondary trading was a barrier, with no open way to know who was looking to trade or how to get the best price.
“Our new marketplace offers compelling new revenue and de-risking opportunities for Capacity Market Providers which will make the market more efficient and liquid. We are looking forward to welcoming new Capacity Market Providers and encourage them to register to join the growing number of +10 active providers who have already come on board.”
Piclo Exchange builds on Piclo Flex, the UK’s leading independent marketplace for locational flexibility services, which brings together System Operators and Flex Providers, with a total of 13.9GW of flexible capacity registered.
ENDS
Piclo develops software to make electricity grids smart, flexible and sustainable. Chaired by Volker Beckers, the London-based company has been building solutions for the energy industry since 2013, having secured funding including grants from DECC and BEIS and investment from the Green Angel Syndicate, Mott MacDonald Ventures and the Clean Growth Fund. Piclo Flex is an independent marketplace for trading flexibility online. The platform provides market visibility, qualification services and online auctions with over 12GW of flexible capacity registered. Since 2018, Piclo has supported the business-as-usual flexibility procurement of six of the UK DNOs and is commercially contracted with UK Power Networks, SP Energy Networks and Electricity North West.