We’ll control assets on your behalf to provide flexibility to the grid. We will always do so in a way that protects users and earns them cash.
We’ll operate assets within the constraints you provide us.
Typically we’ll be optimizing to maximise flexibility revenue within a hierarchy of constraints:
User's intent
The user's tariff
Constraints you provide
Event-based dispatch is where we receive a signal from the market operator to provide flexibility. Typically, these dispatches will be short-lived, and for a specific amount of time. You can see an example dispatch event here.
Common examples include:
In this case, Axle’s dispatch of the asset is infrequent: it’s a temporary interruption to the normal operation of the asset.
Delegated control is where Axle takes responsibility for the operation of the asset over a longer period of time. This is helpful when we have an opportunity to continuously optimize the asset, for instance in the wholesale market.
For instance, this could be:
In cases where you’re already running an optimization, we use a price curve dispatch. This means that for each asset, we provide a localised price curve that combines the different incentives that we’re exposed to via the market.
This can simply be added to the cost function in your existing optimization. This ensures that any constraints that are defined in your optimization (e.g. a minimum temperature in the hot water tank) are honoured, and alleviates the need for you to surface all of the relevant variables to us (some of which may be local or sensitive).
Unlike with event-based or delegated control, with price curve control we don’t get any direct feedback on whether you’re planning to dispatch the asset as we instruct. This means that we have to bid more conservatively, because our ability to compensate for non-delivery is lower.
Our preference is to integrate price curve dispatch via webhook, so you’ll receive updates if the price curve changes, due to new opportunities in e.g. the intraday or frequency markets.
You can register to receive dispatch messages via our API, or we can integrate into an existing control API for your assets.
We’ll build a custom integration to dispatch via your API. This can be schedule-based or instantaneous - get in touch to discuss.