SGS And SSE’s Distributed Energy Arm Enter Partnership

Global clean energy software company, Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS), and SSE's Distributed Energy business have signed a landmark partnership to develop an innovative ‘Energy as a Service' platform.

The new system will bring together SGS's distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) software and SSE Enterprise's capabilities in distributed energy generation, EV infrastructure, private electricity networks and heat networks under a single platform.

This platform will optimise energy usage to generate revenue, deliver enhanced security of supply and meet carbon reduction targets, building upon SGS's existing smart grid platform, ANM Strata, which controls energy assets and load to manage constraints in the underlying network to which they are connected.

The capabilities will be enhanced, in time, to provide functionality to generate revenues from opportunities in a number of UK markets including Wholesale, Balancing, and Ancillary Services, as well as enabling behind the meter and building energy optimisation.

The platform's algorithms and fast-acting, high quality control capability will be further enhanced by the experience and expertise of SSE's Distributed Energy business.

Graham Ault, Director at Smarter Grid Solutions, said of the partnership: “The partnership with SSE Enterprise is the culmination of a significant investment to enhance our DERMS platform to manage diverse energy assets, deliver flexibility and provide multiple market interfaces, adding to our already proven distribution network management capabilities.

“We have exciting projects already underway to manage EV charging, renewable energy, and flexible loads and look forward to developing these opportunities much further with SSE Enterprise and so enable a wide range of energy consumers and generators to benefit from the low carbon transition.”

Stephen Stead, Director of Digital Services and Strategy for SSE Distributed Energy arm, said: “Real time control of local energy generation and consumption is playing an increasingly vital role in decarbonising our economy. As energy demand increases through the electrification of services, such as transport and heat, so too will the need for responsive energy asset control to manage the growth in variable renewables.

“This exciting new SGS-SSE partnership is a huge step in our ‘smart cities' vision and will support local authorities, large energy users, and building and estate owners to deploy and manage low carbon technologies in order to meet the UK Government's net-zero target by 2050. It will also help consumers to minimise both energy costs and exposure to energy price uncertainties while maximising security of supply.”