Solar energy

Tender description

Changes in the energy sector offer the potential to add value to Together Housing’s main assets — its properties. To do this at any strategic scale would require a very large investment commitment that will not be considered without robust evidence of project operation and return and a realistic assessment of the risks involved in a dynamic market place. The pilot project is designed to achieve the following: — provide data about the costs of investment and operations, — experience of large scale implementation within a selected tenant community, — provide data on power generation, storage, discharge and grid export, — produce market data on the revenue generation potential based on the data working with a range of market intermediaries. The project and its findings are intended to be shared with the social housing sector and stimulate further investment in the low carbon economy by removing risk and providing an operating model. The project is being co-funded by European Union Struc Together Housing is a registered provider of social housing and owns and manages 37 000 properties across the north of England. Together Housing’s Energy team has a rolling 5 year energy plan that aims to manage the impacts of a rapidly changing energy sector on its core business. In doing so, it will mitigate threats to the affordability of its properties, impact on the well being of its tenants and minimise operational costs. It will also take advantage of new market opportunities to generate additional revenue from its energy assets and seek to consistently reduce its carbon impact. Together Housing already has around 5Mgw of solar PV installed on its properties. Since the rapid regression in feed in tariff rates, the energy team has been developing alternative commercial models that would enable a longer-term rolling programme of investment on a much larger proportion of its stock. A key element of that solution is the use of solar PV with associated battery storage. The application of these systems provides an opportunity to consider the best ways: — to sell the generated power on site, — to sell power via peer to peer or some other form of export, — to engage with new energy markets such as demand side response to generate revenue. (a) Project purpose: Changes in the energy sector offer the potential to add value to Together Housing’s main assets — its properties. To do this at any strategic scale would require a very large investment commitment that will not be considered without robust evidence of project operation and return and a realistic assessment of the risks involved in a dynamic market place. The pilot project is designed to achieve the following: — provide data about the costs of investment and operations, — experience of large scale implementation within a selected tenant community, — provide data on power generation, storage, discharge and grid export, — produce market data on the revenue generation potential based on the data working with a range of market intermediaries. The project and its findings are intended to be shared with the social housing sector and stimulate further investment in the low carbon economy by removing risk and providing an operating model. The project is being co-funded by European Union Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) Managed by Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and detailed monitoring will last until March 2021.