Combined heat & power
Horticultural, commercial and industrial combined heat and power (CHP) has been P3P’s historic speciality. P3P develops, finances, and operates combined CHP sites around the UK, and is the single largest CHP provider to the horticultural sector.
Among other projects, we supply heat, electricity and CO2 across six sites to the UK’s largest supplier of British tomatoes, responsible for approximately 30% of total UK production. We also supply power to commercial and industrial sites, including to Quorn Foods, Hilton hotels and Jaguar Landrover’s production facilities.
Our CHP engines also export electricity in support of the local grid, participating in the grid balancing market and capacity mechanism. We also help to cover demand when, for example, renewable energy sources are not available.
Horticultural, commercial and industrial combined heat and power (CHP) has been P3P’s historic speciality. P3P develops, finances, and operates combined CHP sites around the UK, and is the single largest CHP provider to the horticultural sector.
Horticultural, commercial and industrial combined heat and power (CHP) has been P3P’s historic speciality.
P3P develops, finances, and operates combined CHP sites around the UK, and is the single largest CHP provider to the horticultural sector.
Among other projects, we supply heat, electricity and CO2 across six sites to the UK’s largest supplier of British tomatoes, responsible for approximately 30% of total UK production. We also supply power to commercial and industrial sites, including to Quorn Foods, Hilton hotels and Jaguar Landrover’s production facilities.
Our CHP engines also export electricity in support of the local grid, participating in the grid balancing market and capacity mechanism. We also help to cover demand when, for example, renewable energy sources are not available.
Energy asset management and optimisation
P3P is unusual among developers as we have, through P3P Energy Supply Limited, a UK electricity supply licence and full asset management and energy trading teams. Utilising state-of-the-art asset automation, monitoring and control hardware as well as our own integrated software portal, we can generate significant operational and financial benefits from the synergies between these different functions. We can also provide access to a huge array of data on asset and trading performance in real-time.
Examples of the kinds of optimisation the integrated P3P approach unlocks vs. separate conventional contractors include:
Maintenance timing
We may schedule planned maintenance downtimes to coincide with periods of expected high wind and mild temperatures (when the wholesale energy price, and therefore the revenue foregone, is expected to be lower)
High spark spreads
We monitor forward markets in real time so we can lock in unusually high spark spreads (for gas generation and CHP assets), whether in the season-ahead, month-ahead, day-ahead or within day markets
Operating parameters
Our detailed data collection allows advanced analytics to forecast heat demand and choose the optimal operating parameters with a much longer time horizon
P3P’s integrated approach
Electricity is harnessed along with heat and excess CO2.
Heat is captured which is stored in our water tank
Electricity for industry
Electricity for homes
40% Electrical Energy
55% Thermal Energy
100% Gas Energy
P3P’s integrated approach
Electricity is harnessed along with
heat and excess CO2.
which is stored in
our water tank
Electricity for industry
Electricity for homes
40% Electrical Energy
55% Thermal Energy
100% Gas Energy
Case study: Teesside CHP
P3P manages this 6.6MWe CHP that supplies heat and CO₂ to an adjacent horticultural nursery. Electricity is either exported to the grid or sold to a nearby factory through a private wire. P3PES optimises the function of the CHP, ensuring that:
- Heat is delivered to the nursery as needed
- CO₂ is delivered to the nursery at the specific times it is needed for photosynthesis
- The electricity sales revenue from grid exports is maximised
- Any flexibility that the CHP has to trade electricity outside the must-run periods is utilised, selling either to the wholesale market or to the factory
- In the case of any unplanned outages on the site, electricity trade positions are managed
- Timely and accurate energy supply invoices are provided to the CHP owner, who can monitor asset performance through our analytics platform.
We are always interested in acquiring land to develop new projects, pre‑existing projects or grid connections for repowering.
Got an opportunity? Get in touch!
We are always interested in acquiring land to develop new projects, pre‑existing projects or grid connections for repowering.
Got an opportunity? Get in touch!
