• Recover the COMPLETE cost of your new generator through participation in our STOR scheme.
• Creates or reinforces a regular testing protocol for your standby power ensuring operational readiness at all times
• Provides a valuable monitoring service for your energy usage and costs
• Supports low-carbon and renewable energy supplies

What is GENsmart?

• A no-cost, no-risk opportunity for public and private organisations to generate regular income by running their standby generator(s) within the National Grid’s STOR scheme.

What is the National Grid STOR scheme?

The National Grid STOR scheme allows companies to receive payments by removing or reducing their load from the National Grid during times of peak power usage when called upon (a ‘dispatch’).

This can be done either by reducing your energy power usage during these peak times (effectively removing your energy load from the grid), or more commonly, using your own generator to cover your needs during a ‘despatch’. The result is that it removes your need for power from the grid during that time period. The STOR programme will then pay you for the power that you have ‘removed’ from the grid during the despatches over a monthly period.

How much power do I have to remove from the grid to be part of the scheme? To become a STOR partner through our GENsmart scheme you must be able to:

• remove a minimum of 100kW from the grid during a despatch period.
• respond to a dispatch call within a 15-20 minute time frame (although this can be automated).
• be available to respond to a dispatch within your agreed time period (decided upon during your initial meeting and plan development).

What’s the cost to me?

There is absolutely no cost or ‘catch’ to participating in the GENsmart scheme (dependent on your installation type). All that is required is that you are available to respond to a dispatch when called upon at the times within your agreement.

How GENsmart payments work.

Payments within the GENsmart scheme are made up of 2 parts;

1) Availability payments

This is a payment made by the GENsmart programme based simply on your ‘overall availability’ to participate in the scheme when a despatch/event is called and the overall energy which you are capable of removing from the grid (in kW) during that period.

The overall availability hours are set by the National Grid and are defined by them at the start of each year.

In general, participation in the scheme assumes full availability (unless outlined in the participation agreement) and on average despatches will occur once a week over a full year.

2) ‘Event’ (despatch) payments

This is the payment made for actually removing your energy load from the grid when required, during a despatch, which will occur approximately once a week over the year (average of 50 dispatches per year).

Example payments:

The example payments below are an estimation of the expected income which you could receive assuming full availability over an operational year, based on an availability payment of £7.00 per MW and an event payment of £210 per MW taken from the grid.

Payments shown are annual totals for agreed energy removal from the grid.

FAQs

• Why does the National Grid need GENsmart?

Balancing supply and demand on the electrical grid for the National Grid is a constant challenge. Power plants break down, renewable power is variable and intermittent and consumer energy usage sometimes spikes. These constant fluctuations threaten the reliability of the grid and drive up energy prices.

To address imbalances between energy supply and demand, National Grid relies on STOR resources such as those offered by GENsmart which are despatched when supply and demand are out of balance. UPS Systems has partnered with the National Grid to offer our customers the opportunity to participate in the STOR scheme to help create a broad demand response network that serves as a ‘virtual power plant’, ready to provide additional power to the grid when needed most and support the grid.

• How do I take part

Simply contact us to make an appointment and we can take care of all the details leaving you to concentrate on your business.

• What is involved and what’s the cost?

  There is NO COST to participate in the scheme, however, dependent on your installation type and choice of level of participation, some additional equipment may be required. Once an appointment is made, our team will work with you to determine a bespoke energy reduction plan based on your operations and capability. We then provide a detailed energy reduction plan to you.
  All equipment required to operate the system automatically and provide communications with our Operations Centre is then installed at no cost. This also provides your own ‘live access’ to the system providing detailed information on your own energy usage both during and outside a despatch. This free system can also be used by your company to manage your own energy costs all year round (see chart below).

• What happens during a despatch?

If the National grid anticipates a need for additional power it will first contact our operations centre who will then notify you that a despatch will occur in the next 15-20 mins (18 mins on average, 20 minutes maximum).

You will then change over to generator power or reduce your energy consumption at the previously determined level as per your agreed reduction plan.

In general, each despatch will last approximately one hour. Before, during and after each despatch you will continue to have access to full communications with the operations centre as our personnel are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

• Can the system be automated?

To a degree yes if you are using a generator as your prime power source during a despatch.

• What do I do now?

Contact us directly via telephone, web form or our call back system. We supply a wide range of diesel generators including AKSA generators, Hyundai generators and Pramac generators.