Axle Energy VPP

[Russdl]

I’m surprised that I can’t find anything on BuildHub regarding Axle Energy. 
 

They’ll pay £1/kWh for battery export and you don’t need to change your current supplier or hand over complete control of your battery. 
 

It looks a bit far fetched on first glance but digging into it, maybe not. They operate a virtual power plant (VPP) using thousands of domestic batteries and use that to fill generation gaps when the grid is under stress, that’s when energy prices are their highest hence they can pay the £1/kWh. Gary’s in to it. 
 

 

Anyone signed up yet? I think I may just dive in. 

[JohnMo]

I mentioned it before the weekend on another thread.

 

Not far fetched. I used a referral and got £25, then on Friday an export earned £4.85 from Axel plus got paid by Octopus as well at 12p/kWh.

 

They also state you will earn £10 per month.

 

if you would like a referral code, just ask.

[Russdl]

8 hours ago, JohnMo said:

 

I mentioned it before the weekend on another thread.

 

I should have used a Google search, BuildHub search didn’t find that. 
 

Thanks for the offer of a referral code but I’ve got one from my BiL so I’ll use that as he introduced me to this.
 

At first glance I was pretty sceptical (who was going to pay £1/kWh!) and ignored it. After a closer look it seemed liked a good plan, as your experience shows, and decided I’ll give it a go. 

[JohnMo]

13 minutes ago, Russdl said:

who was going to pay £1/kWh

Just shows why our grid pricing is completely screwed up! But I'm not going to turn away from a gift horse, while it's available.

[Russdl]

Well, I’m signed up and have my £25 bonus. 
 

Strange that there is no password to log in to ‘my account’ I guess yours is the same @JohnMo?

[MikeSharp01]

18 hours ago, Russdl said:

They’ll pay £1/kWh for battery export and you don’t need to change your current supplier or hand over complete control of your battery. 

How do they know it is battery export, do they have some sort of local monitoring?

 

More importantly does that mean that the GAS based generators, and everybody else because of the contracts system, are getting £1+ for every kWh they generate at specific times?

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, MikeSharp01 said:

More importantly does that mean that the GAS based generators, and everybody else because of the contracts system, are getting £1+ for every kWh they generate at specific times

Good point, but I doubt it. It is not new generation as such, just recycling excess.

 

Do they say how much power, and energy, they can draw on?

19 minutes ago, Russdl said:

Strange that there is no password to log in to ‘my account’

Quite a worry that, but they may be using certificates behind the scene.

[-rick-]

10 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

How do they know it is battery export, do they have some sort of local monitoring?

 

They have API integration to inverters. On those with full integration I'd guess they have full reporting from the inverters. But they also support less integration and I think they can still support those because when signing up you give them permission to access the 30min readings from your smart meter. So they can see how much you export within those high reward periods (and this acts as verification for the API integrated case).

[JohnMo]

31 minutes ago, Russdl said:

Well, I’m signed up and have my £25 bonus. 
 

Strange that there is no password to log in to ‘my account’ I guess yours is the same @JohnMo?

Next time you try to log in you will have go in via an email link. That link stays valid a few days only, repeat 

[JohnMo]

22 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

How do they know it is battery export

They get your battery API, and control the export from it. Suppose it makes zero difference if it's energy direct from battery or PV. But you have to have a compatible battery to play and a smart meter

Edited May 26 by JohnMo

[JohnMo]

Interesting email today, reference GivEnergy batteries only, if you're a member of Axle you get GivEnergy premium service included. You can invite GivEnergy users still, but no introduction bonus is payable any more - other makes of battery you still get the introduction bonus.

[Dillsue]

For anyone signed up to Axle, how's the service going?

[Bonner]

Works perfectly for me with Fox ESS battery and inverter. I believe some other systems can be troublesome, some not supported at all. PM me if you would like a referral 😃

[JohnMo]

Great, generally had 3 events a month since May. Seamless especially when managing your battery via Predbat.

 

Have event today.

 

Axle link referral 

https://vpp.axle.energy/landing?ref=R-VYFYIHBL

Edited 14 hours ago by JohnMo

[Russdl]

All good here, signed up beginning of May (£25), one referral bonus (£25) and total export credit to date £105.73 from Axle. I do nothing, just let it get on with its thing when it wants to. 
 

I normally get around £5:50 per 1hr event and £11:00 per 2hr event, only had one of those so far. 

[JohnMo]

4 hours ago, Russdl said:

All good here, signed up beginning of May (£25), one referral bonus (£25) and total export credit to date £105.73 from Axle. I do nothing, just let it get on with its thing when it wants to. 
 

I normally get around £5:50 per 1hr event and £11:00 per 2hr event, only had one of those so far. 

Almost exactly the same as us, 1 2hr event and £106.60. Hopefully another £5ish later today.

[Dillsue]

Sounds like a goer:) Can you limit or fix how much they take from the battery?

[JohnMo]

11 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Sounds like a goer:) Can you limit or fix how much they take from the battery?

Think you would have to go in manually to adjust min SoC, mine just gets pulled at max rate, but if I start at around 100% we are never below 50% at the end of the event as you are limited by inverter size.

Edited 6 hours ago by JohnMo

[MikeGrahamT21]

Yeah I signed up for this and linked my inverter but so far I’ve had to do everything manually despite them saying it’s supported, I’ve emailed them but so far not heard back.

 

seems odd that you can literally do nothing and earn £120 a year!?

[Russdl]

50 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Can you limit or fix how much they take from the battery?

You can, but under current tariffs why would you? Axle buy it for £1/kWh, if I need to buy it back at peak rate it’ll cost me around 30p/kWh so effectively I’ve only got 70p/kWh instead of the whole £1. That’ll do nicely. 

[Russdl]

2 minutes ago, MikeGrahamT21 said:

seems odd that you can literally do nothing and earn £120 a year!?

Doesn’t it just!
 

Mind you, I suppose the thing we have done is invest in a battery, the VPP could not exist without that. 

[JohnMo]

13 minutes ago, MikeGrahamT21 said:

seems odd that you can literally do nothing and earn £120 a year!?

That's only part of it, you still get paid for export by your energy supplier as well. Tonight I get £1 from Axle plus 39.8p from Octopus per kWh. Plus that's only 5 months of the year so far. Good chance winter will yield more money.

[Bonner]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

you are limited by inverter size

Depends on your battery as well. I have a 8kW inverter but only export around 4.5kW due to max battery discharge current (50A). Any solar generation is on top of that since it is not going in the battery.