Three key markets for grid-scale flywheel energy storage:
Wholesale Arbitrage
Charge up at low-prices, often due to low demand or excess renewables, and resell at high prices, in periods of high demand or low wind. The wholesale market intraday line above indicates one example of this type of opportunity.
Grid Balancing
Get paid by the grid to charge or discharge at short notice to balance grid generation and demand. The balancing mechanism system price line above indicates this opportunity on a day of record high prices in the balancing mechanism.
Ancillary Services
As flywheels can change their input or output to the grid almost instantaneously, they can get paid to provide services such as dynamic containment, which help the grid rapidly contain the impact of faults on the network.
Optimisation
The optimisation of a storage asset's revenue is achieved by a complex mesh of participation in all three of these markets, using real-time algorithmic trading. This is increasingly achieved by dedicated storage optimiser companies. We will seek to partner with them in future to fully demonstrate the revenue opportunities and advantages of flywheel storage.