London, UK, 23 November 2023 – Piclo, the world’s leading flexibility marketplace provider, has today announced its plans to launch a new market access platform, “Piclo Max”, offering sellers and buyers of flexible electricity a one stop shop for all electricity markets globally.
Piclo Max will be rolled out in 2024, starting in the UK, to simplify and unlock broader electricity market access for flexibility service providers. The platform matches sellers of surplus electricity (or flex sellers) to system operators (or flex buyers), enabling an increasingly thriving flexibility market. Piclo Max responds to widespread calls from flex sellers to tackle barriers to market entry and represents a significant step towards a fully flexible electricity system.
CEO of Piclo, James Johnson said: “The launch of Piclo Max will be a crucial step in our mission to decarbonise grids. We are incredibly excited to take electricity and flexibility markets to the next stage, building on our track record in the UK, Europe and the US. We’ve already seen strong commitments from industry leading flex sellers, who, like us, want to make real strides towards a more aligned UK electricity market. Flexibility is a tangible, viable tool for decarbonisation, today. It is a proven tool for efficiently balancing the grid and reducing the cost of future grid reinforcement, globally, delivering immediate value for our customers and wider society.”
Flex buyers typically include system operators responsible for national system balancing and resolving transmission grid constraints) and distribution network operators (who are responsible for the last mile of electricity delivery and need access to flexibility to manage bottlenecks on the local grid). Flex sellers typically own and operate ‘distributed’ energy resources – including renewables generation, batteries and EVs – that are capable of responding to SO requests and modifying their electricity generation or consumption accordingly.
The complex and opaque nature of electricity markets means that flex sellers face many barriers in optimising revenue for their assets, including dealing with multiple market platforms, each with different sets of systems and protocols. For example, Piclo’s flagship product, Piclo Flex, provides an independent marketplace for local flexibility, but there are different platforms for wholesale, capacity and balancing markets. This places a huge time and cost burden on flex sellers, limiting participation and competition across the industry.
Piclo Max will benefit flex sellers with cost and time efficiencies as well as access to new and existing income via revenue stacking. For example, from operational assets already registered on the Piclo Flex marketplace, Piclo Max could unlock over £750 million a year in revenue stacking opportunities.
At the same time, flex buyers, including SOs at both Transmission and Distribution level, will gain access to a wider selection of vetted flex sellers and increased market liquidity, ensuring uninterrupted development of flexibility services.
Piclo Max is aligned with the ambitions of policy makers and regulators, including those of British energy regulator Ofgem, which in its May 2023 strategy set out ambitious plans for a flexible UK electricity system. The introduction of Piclo Max represents a pivotal point in the UK’s continued global flexibility leadership. The platform will transform existing electricity markets, providing flex sellers with access to all electricity market opportunities, services and insights – from capacity, wholesale, distribution flex, and local constraints markets – in a single place.
The platform has already generated significant interest across the UK’s transmission and distribution, and flex seller space.
Register online for early access to Piclo Max in 2024.
FTI Consulting Strategic Communications
1 Calculations estimated on total stacked revenue from all operational assets currently registered on Piclo Flex.
2 https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/ofgem-sets-out-proposals-transform-local-energy-systems
[This notice was update on 26th March, 2024]
Piclo’s mission is to decarbonise the grid. We develop software solutions that make our energy networks smarter, flexible and more sustainable. Piclo Max, our market access platform, enables flex sellers (such as EV and battery owners) to access all electricity markets from one place. Piclo Flex, our flexibility services marketplace, enables flex buyers (system operators) to source flexible electricity from flex sellers during times of high demand or low supply.
To date, Piclo has over 300,000 registered flexible assets representing 22 GW of registered flex capacity, with flexibility contracts awarded totalling £74m and 2.6 GW+ of flexible capacity procured.
Piclo currently operates in six global markets: in the UK, supporting all six Distribution System Operators (UK Power Networks, SP Energy Networks, Electricity North West, Northern Powergrid, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and National Grid Electricity Distribution); and the Transmission System Operator (TSO) (the ESO); in Ireland (ESB Networks), Italy (E-Distribuzione), Portugal (E-REDES)); in Australia (CitiPower, Powercor); and in the United States in New York State (National Grid) and Connecticut (United Illuminating). Aside from its leading position in the UK, Piclo has a growing presence in Europe, USA and the Asia-Pacific.
For more information book a demo, follow us on LinkedIn, and watch us on YouTube.