Project Summary

Park&Flex will investigate the potential to access flexibility services from EVs in car parks, and in turn, enable the connection of low carbon demand and generation quickly and efficiently by deferring or avoiding costly network investment. Potential grid services may include energy balancing, ancillary services, and addressing local network constraints such as absorption of local generation at times of high renewable output.

This proposal therefore addresses two areas of the SIF challenges:

• Primary impact -- Challenge 4: Accelerating the decarbonisation of major energy demands -- by increasing the use of flexibility from EVs in car parks to effectively facilitate, manage, and integrate multiple demands and demand-side solutions; and
• Secondary impact -- Challenge 2: Preparing for a Net Zero power system -- by increasing the ability to access system support from novel demand-side technologies.
• The energy network innovation involved in this project is to gain insight and access to a novel new form of demand side response, and to develop and trial the new flexibility products and market mechanisms required to access this resource. This project will develop new revenue streams for market participants, to incentivise development of propositions that share the benefits that this resource can provide.

The Discovery Phase will be delivered through collaboration between the following partners:

• Fermata Energy -- a V2X technology provider, specialising in charging algorithms and user software to operate V2X chargers to maximise the benefits to the grid and the end user;
• Baringa Partners LLP -- a specialist energy sector consultancy who are ideally suited to leading the commercial design activity utilising their commercial and market expertise;
• Greater London Authority -- as the local government representative to provide access to and insight into London's car park operators, and the associated stakeholder landscape; and,
• UK Power Networks -- the DNO providing input on time and costs to unlock this flexibility, any avoided network costs, and service/incentive design.

If successful, this project will deliver these value propositions to its direct and indirect users:

• Car park and V2X EV owners -- enabling customer propositions that attract V2X car owners to plug in and offer up their battery capacity, thus accessing flexibility incentives;
• System Operators -- proving an additional resource to procure flexibility services from, helping to address system constraints and bring down service costs; and,
• Suppliers -- proving an additional resource to manage energy balance and to offset network charges for customers through DSO/ESO revenue streams.

Innovation Justification

Delivering Net Zero will require a transformation in the way we produce, move and consume energy. Increasing demand and a need to consume renewable energy when it is in abundance, may result in larger and less predictable flows in the electricity network. Accessing flexibility services from DERs will help manage these flows and enable quick and efficient integration of further low carbon demand and generation onto the system.

Park & Flex is innovative because it will develop insight and access to a novel new form of demand side response, and to develop and trial the new flexibility products and market mechanisms required to access this resource. If successful, this project will develop new revenue streams for market participants, to incentivise development of propositions that can share in the benefits that this resource can provide.

In this context, car parks in the future will have the potential to become large batteries, capable of providing bi-directional services to the energy system -- but the data on car park volumes or the flexibility potential per car park has not yet been assessed or demonstrated. Recent projects have demonstrated the effectiveness of V2X EVs to deliver system services -- such as Fermata Energy's Red Hook fleet deployment and UKPN' Transpower -- but none have yet addressed the role public car parks could play.

The key missing insight relates to the potential supply of flexibility from car parks (e.g. the volume, type and location of car parks, and data on car park utilisation and plug-in time); the services that car park flexibility could provide and market mechanisms needed; and the customer propositions and underpinning technology and network needs.

If successful, Park & Flex will deliver value by providing additional flexibility resources to enable system operators to effectively facilitate, manage, and integrate multiple demands and demand-side solutions, leading to reduced reinforcement requirements and lower costs to operate the network. It will also enable faster access to network capacity for low carbon technologies, thus accelerating decarbonisation.

Funding this innovation elsewhere is difficult for networks as viable customer propositions and technical solutions for flexibility from car parks are not sufficiently understood or demonstrated. Should this progress to trials, the SIF Beta fund sizing is better sized to support this than other innovation funding sources. For market participants, the limited incentive to explore customer propositions due the unclear revenue opportunities that flexibility from car parks presents.

Project Benefits

The Flexibility in Great Britain report (2021)* forecasts benefits from flexibility of £16.7bn per year by 2050, and UK Power Networks' business plan sets out DSO benefits in the RIIO-ED2 period including £410m of reduced capital investment enabled through flexibility. Park & Flex will contribute to delivery of these benefits.

Park & Flex has the potential to reduce network operating and capital costs by enabling the use of flexibility services in new areas. These services may include several use cases, including reducing curtailment of renewable generation, managing network constraints thus reducing reinforcement, or supporting outages as an alternative to temporary generation.

These benefits can be quantified and tracked using the following KPIs:

• (K1). Capacity (MW) and volume (MWh) of flexibility available from car parks
• (K2). Capacity (MW) and volume (MWh) of flexibility provided for each service use case
• (K3). Net avoided costs (£) through the use of flexibility from car parks for each service use case

Increasing the supply of flexibility could also enable a reduction in the price of flexibility services through increased competition, but this benefit would be difficult to quantify and attribute to any particular project.

Park & Flex has the potential to deliver cost savings per annum on energy bills for consumers​ in the long-run through reduced DUoS charges. It would not be practical to track this impact directly in DUoS charges, but it will be possible to quantify and track the cost savings indirectly through (K3) set out above.

Park & Flex has the potential to deliver indirect CO2 savings per annum by enabling reduced curtailment, and accelerated connections of low carbon distributed generation. The reduced curtailment benefit can be quantified and tracked indirectly through (K2) by forecasting/tracking the use of a curtailment reduction flexibility product, but it would not be possible to quantify the contribution to accelerated connections.

Park & Flex will also deliver new products and the creation of new revenue streams. These can be tracked through the following KPIs:

• (K4) Number of flexibility products available to procure flexibility from cark parks
  We intend to forecast KPI K1, K2 and K3 based on evidenced assumptions during the Discovery Phase; to validate these in more detail through Alpha Phase; and to gather real-world evidence to validate them in Beta Phase. The number of new flexibility products available (K4) can be tracked but not forecast.

* https://www.carbontrust.com/resources/flexibility-in-great-britain