MVS Oxford Bus Company technical report

Project LEO is taking an agile approach to developing and testing new flexibility services. This is achieved through minimum viable system (MVS) trials which use the minimum set of requirements to test a new hypothesis or adaptation from previous iterations.

The first type of flexibility service identified as an MVS trial within LEO was based on electrical storage which may or may not be co-located with non-dispatchable generation such as solar PV. This aligns with the OverSolar set of plug-in projects which explore how local energy markets and flexibility can enable additional PV capacity (both financial viability and network headroom) at existing locations.

Oxford Bus Company’s Cowley depot on Watlington Road is the location of a 140 kWp PV installation managed by the Low Carbon Hub. There are also two 24 kW, 90 kWh batteries on site which are intended as a buffer for electric bus charging (due to import capacity constraints); due to a limited demand for electric bus charging currently, the batteries are underutilised. Thanks to the strong relationship between the Oxford Bus Company and the Low Carbon Hub, these batteries have been made available to Project LEO for early MVS trials.