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National Grid joins Piclo’s ‘one stop shop’ flexibility platform

National Grid Electricity Distribution has signed up to Piclo’s new flexibility platform, which it says will be a “one stop shop for all electricity markets globally”.

The partnership with National Grid is the first stage of Piclo’s ambition to enable flex sellers to access all six local flexibility markets via its Piclo Max platform.

The Piclo Max platform has been established to tackle many barriers flex sellers face when accessing markets due to their “complex and opaque nature”. This, Piclo added, includes the fact they have to deal with multiple platforms, each with different systems and protocols.

The new platform will provide a single platform for wholesale, capacity and balancing markets.

Following the partnership with National Grid, more than 150 flex sellers with more than 60,000 assets registered on Piclo will have direct access to the network operator’s Low Voltage Flexibility Opportunities, seeking to trade over 90MW of local flexibility.

Piclo aims to add further UK electricity markets to the platform throughout 2024, followed by additional global markets.

Piclo chief executive and co-founder James Johnston said: “This collaboration is all about unlocking the potential of market interoperability.

“For the first time, FSPs have a choice regarding how they experience and interact with UK flex markets. It’s a significant milestone for market accessibility and a critical step towards enabling revenue stacking”.

Matt Watson, head of commercial and operability at National Grid, added: “This is our first step towards opening up our Market Gateway platform for wider market entry and the interfaces we’re developing with Piclo will provide FSPs with greater choice on how they enter the distribution flexibility market.

“We hope to see an increase in the offers available to us and importantly we’ll be able to make fair decisions on market clearing regardless of which platform the FSP trades through.”