Local energy market delivers up to 90% savings for businesses in GB

A local energy market with peer-to-peer trading in an industrial estate in eastern England has delivered between 20% and 90% savings on energy bills for the participating SMEs.

The local energy market, delivered by the Manchester headquartered UrbanChain and the West Suffolk Council at the Mildenhall Industrial Estate near to the town of Bury St Edmunds, was set up in 2021 to further the use of green energy.

The West Suffolk Council has 272kW of solar PV installed on ten commercial buildings based within the Mildenhall Industrial Estate and in addition owns a nearby 12MW solar farm.

“It’s working and it has developed,” says Andy Oswald, who manages West Suffolk Council’s energy generation.

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“It’s a great result that we are powering our own estate using UrbanChain’s peer-to-peer network. Our partners are consuming 100% locally generated renewable electricity.”

UrbanChain is an established provider of peer-to-peer exchange services in the UK using blockchain and AI to match generators of renewable energy and consumers on a half hourly basis.

The company currently manages more than 200GWh of renewable energy exchange and has 3.3TWh in its pipeline.

A statement reads that being part of UrbanChain’s peer-to-peer energy exchange has enabled the West Suffolk Council’s renewable generators to make up to at least 35% higher than the market offers.

While initially the partnership was envisaged from a business point of view, the Council soon became aware of the potential of utilising its own solar farm to power the estate, with excess fed to UrbanChain’s wider peer-to-peer network.

The peer-to-peer trading initiative was initiated alongside other energy activities including improvements in energy efficiency, grid capacity constraints and balancing at the Mildenhall Industrial Estate as part of the EU supported ACCESS project, co-funded under the Interreg NSR programme to reduce emissions in regions around the North Sea.

Other project components were undertaken in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, Malmö, Sweden and Mechelen, Belgium.

Targets for West Suffolk Council’s targets included engaging with up to at least 50 businesses out of the more than 140 at the Mildenhall Industrial Estate and saving 600,000kWh and 250t CO2 annually

The Council also anticipates potential upscaling of the service across the Eastern Power Network.