Welsh water signs agreement with Open Energi

Welsh Water has signed an agreement with Open Energi to share flexible energy demand from equipment across its network and to help manage peaks and troughs in power supply and demand across the UK.

After an open tender and successful trial of Open Energi’s Dynamic Demand technology, Welsh Water expects to aggregate around 5MW from 25 of its location in the first phase of implementation.

This technology serves as a distributed storage network, where in pumps’ power consumption is automatically adjusted the within seconds to help manage fluctuations in power supply and demand.

These adjustments have leave zero impact on Welsh Water’s operations though they help to build a smarter, more responsive system which supports renewables and the wider UK transition to a zero carbon economy.

Open Energi commercial manager Chris Kimmett said: "The water sector consumes a lot of energy, but much of it is not time-sensitive, so there is huge scope for water companies to be flexible about when they consume energy and shift their demand intelligently."

Open Energi and Welsh Water plan to expand the partnership to include additional equipment and processes across its network in the long term.

Chris added: "We’re delighted Welsh Water chose to partner with Open Energi and this is an important milestone as we continue to work closely with the water sector to deliver the scale of invisible demand response National Grid is looking for."