Axle Energy Virtual Power Plant

[gmaz]

Has anyone signed up for this? I got the option to sign up after GivEnergy started their subscription service and GE cloud access was either £5.99 per month, or free with Axle. ( https://vpp.axle.energy/landing )

If you don't know about it, you give Axle permission to use export from your home battery to the grid when extra kiloWatts are required, for which you get £1 per kWh. Seems like a no brainer as my max import cost is £0.29/kWh. Unfortunately, I only have a GE gen 1 inverter with max output of 2.5kW so during the last export event I exported 2.02kWh. Axle guarantee £10 per month... I wonder if they realised I only have a weedy inverter when they put that in the contract.

FYI this is the info you get for an event, and they give you a 24 hours notice via email.





If anyone has a good Home Assistant dashboard for Axle, I'd love a bit of inspiration.

Edited by gmaz on Sunday 7th June 13:07

[footnote[Moderator edit: no referral codes[/footnote]

[theboss]

I signed up earlier in the year and have had several events per month since, from which I earn about £10 per time.

Seems like a bit of money for nothing tbh, I understand it's still in development and we're really just beta testers but so far, so good.

Their system did fail to take control of my inverter recently, which I've let them know about. If you see this happening in real time and force a manual export you still get paid for it, though.

[Ardennes92]

Seems a bit of a no brainier to save £5 & earn £10, so long as you are happy to give full control to Axle (according to the t&c’s.

[theboss]

The way it s worked for me so far is, they notify of a grid stabilisation event for 1hr (a bit like octopus do with their demand pricing / use less thing) and you choose whether to opt in.

If you do, their system takes control of your inverter but only in a short window surrounding the event, then it reverts to your control.

You certainly don t hand over control to them in perpetuity - if that s how it appears.

[warnie]

I Use Capture. They don't pay me, but they do get the most out of my system using AI.

I made £361 over April and May selling back to Octopus at 12p. I tried Axel but I wanted them to control it full-time, and there were no places available. Also, Octopus doesn't like you using third-party apps when you're on their Intelligent Go tariff..

[gmaz]

warnie said:

I Use Capture. They don't pay me, but they do get the most out of my system using AI.

I made £361 over April and May selling back to Octopus at 12p. I tried Axel but I wanted them to control it full-time, and there were no places available. Also, Octopus doesn't like you using third-party apps when you're on their Intelligent Go tariff..

I'm on Intelligent Go and had no issue. I know it won't work with Octopus Flux tariffs as they complete with Axle to control the battery.

[gmaz]

warnie said:

Also, Octopus doesn't like you using third-party apps when you're on their Intelligent Go tariff..

"Official" answer from Axle and Octopus, basically don't use Octopus saving sessions if you have Axle

[theboss]

gmaz said:

"Official" answer from Axle and Octopus, basically don't use Octopus saving sessions if you have Axle

It reads in my mind as "don't overlap them" i.e. in any given time window, opt-in to one or the other.

[TheLurker]

I've just signed up for this. It does all seem quite 'beta' so far, such as their website, the way you login etc. Unless I'm missing something and there is an app as well?

How often are people getting sessions?

[theboss]

TheLurker said:

I've just signed up for this. It does all seem quite 'beta' so far, such as their website, the way you login etc. Unless I'm missing something and there is an app as well?

How often are people getting sessions?

Yeah I find the login link a bit annoying. There's no app yet. I'm opted in to one this evening which will be the third in June, two in each of April and May, £10 a time. Happy to go with that and take £20-30 off my bill per month.

[gmaz]

Looks like Octopus have launched their own version of this battery management solution. Pays £12 per month, but if I switch, I lose the premium access to my GivEnergy kit. It is probably worth staying with Axle if you have a powerful inverter i.e. > 5kW as you can export more kW during an event @ £1 per kWh.

It also looks like Octopus may have changed their advice on using Axle together with IOG.

https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/char...

[TheLurker]

Got an event tonight between 7&8, not sure why as it still seems to be quite windy out there.

So far doing pretty well with them, and adds a few pence to the beer fund.

[theboss]

I'm glad I signed up, I've credited my Octopus with a few hundred quid so far this year from Axle which along with solar export credit helps pay for my winter gas usage.

[Condi]

Genuinely have no idea how on earth they're making that pay if they're giving you £1/kwh (£1000/MWh).

The wholesale price tonight is £195/MWh, Axle will get some benefits and save some charges, but not to the extent of 5 times what the wholesale price is!

You may as well make the most of it, suspect it cannot be around for too long.

[theboss]

Condi said:

Genuinely have no idea how on earth they're making that pay if they're giving you £1/kwh (£1000/MWh).

The wholesale price tonight is £195/MWh, Axle will get some benefits and save some charges, but not to the extent of 5 times what the wholesale price is!

You may as well make the most of it, suspect it cannot be around for too long.

I agree, take it whilst it's there. Bit like 0% BIK on EVs in 2020, we know it wouldn't last but still took advantage. I don't know whether they are just hosing investor cash building their base at a loss or whether 'stabilisation' is something the operators pay vastly more than wholesale for.

[3din]

i'm looking to get into something like this, except I was thinking of setting it up using homeassistant and predbat and letting it automate the process. Would I generate more income this way or should i just let a VPP take control?

[AyBee]

theboss said:

Condi said:

Genuinely have no idea how on earth they're making that pay if they're giving you £1/kwh (£1000/MWh).

The wholesale price tonight is £195/MWh, Axle will get some benefits and save some charges, but not to the extent of 5 times what the wholesale price is!

You may as well make the most of it, suspect it cannot be around for too long.

I agree, take it whilst it's there. Bit like 0% BIK on EVs in 2020, we know it wouldn't last but still took advantage. I don't know whether they are just hosing investor cash building their base at a loss or whether 'stabilisation' is something the operators pay vastly more than wholesale for.

It's a combination - grid stability (both national and local depending on where you are), imbalance pricing, balancing mechanism - there's a load of ways, some of which can be stacked, that they can monetise your battery.

[AyBee]

3din said:

i'm looking to get into something like this, except I was thinking of setting it up using homeassistant and predbat and letting it automate the process. Would I generate more income this way or should i just let a VPP take control?

It wouldn't go the whole hog I don't think. I'm not familiar with PredBat but it looks like it just optimises the battery against your tariff which some batteries will do on their own. What Axle are doing is collating a large number of batteries together because flex markets have minimum quantities before they become valuable to NESO (the system operator) - you won't be able to access these markets without the aggregator (Axle or other).

[Condi]

AyBee said:

It's a combination - grid stability (both national and local depending on where you are), imbalance pricing, balancing mechanism - there's a load of ways, some of which can be stacked, that they can monetise your battery.

They're not doing grid stability - that would be a frequency response sort of contract, which this clearly isn't as they're paying for energy. It's not imbalance chasing either, given it's planned and scheduled ahead of time.

The only thing I can see Axle is getting from this is simply energy, and if so it's a very expensive way for them to do it. There is no way that they're getting that value from the wholesale market, nor are they getting it from NESO (National Grid, as was), so someone, somewhere is losing money I would think. Maybe a loss leader for some other idea, or maybe buying market share backed by VC money?

[TheLurker]

Condi said:

AyBee said:

It's a combination - grid stability (both national and local depending on where you are), imbalance pricing, balancing mechanism - there's a load of ways, some of which can be stacked, that they can monetise your battery.

They're not doing grid stability - that would be a frequency response sort of contract, which this clearly isn't as they're paying for energy. It's not imbalance chasing either, given it's planned and scheduled ahead of time.

The only thing I can see Axle is getting from this is simply energy, and if so it's a very expensive way for them to do it. There is no way that they're getting that value from the wholesale market, nor are they getting it from NESO (National Grid, as was), so someone, somewhere is losing money I would think. Maybe a loss leader for some other idea, or maybe buying market share backed by VC money?

That's why I was so surprised to see an event tonight. You can usually tell when they'll be: peak time or just after (to enable earlier shut down of gas stations when marginsl load?) and almost no wind. Wind seems to be the biggest driver.

My only thought is they guarantee £10 a month and top you up if you haven't had 10kWh of export, which is obviously a direct loss, so wonder if they've looked ahead for the month and worked out tonight is the least worst option to get something back to sell rather than just top the money up, if that makes sense?

Did anyone see their live stream the other night?