At QCon London 2025, Kevin Bowman from Kraken Technology, part of Octopus Energy, discussed the intricate challenges and innovative solutions involved in managing the increasing influx of renewable energy onto the UK's power grid. His talk discussed how serverless cloud technologies ensure grid stability and optimize energy flow in a dynamic market.
The UK's grid, which supplies more than 30 GW of power, now sources a significant 40% of its power from renewable sources, predominantly wind. However, the inherent unpredictability of wind power presents a considerable challenge to maintaining a stable energy supply. Kraken Technology is tackling this head-on by leveraging the power and flexibility of serverless cloud solutions to manage energy flow and ensure grid stability in the face of fluctuating renewable generation.
Bowman explained that managing wind's inherent fluctuations and solar energy's inconsistencies requires sophisticated architectural solutions. Battery storage plays a crucial role in smoothing out these peaks and troughs, with inverters acting as the critical interface between the DC power of batteries and solar and the AC power of the grid.
At the heart of Kraken's approach are intelligent control systems that dictate the precise energy flow between these batteries and the grid. These architectural solutions are built entirely on cloud services (AWS), with a strong emphasis on achieving high reliability and scalability, which are essential for managing a critical national infrastructure.
The UK energy market operates within a granular framework of 48 settlement windows daily, with energy trades occurring as far as two years in advance. Balancing this complex market in real time falls to the National Grid ESO, which works tirelessly to prevent energy shortfalls and excesses. Reserve services are also in place to respond immediately to unexpected surges in demand or drops in supply.
Kraken's technological implementation includes a sophisticated trading interface and market connectors that provide real-time grid supply and demand predictions. This allows Kraken to manage its assets strategically within the market's dynamics.
Kraken Technology heavily relies on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to maintain its solutions efficiently and agilely. Key services, such as Lambda for compute, DynamoDB for NoSQL data storage, and API Gateway for managing APIs, form the backbone of its system.
A core architectural principle is the decoupling of systems into microservices. This ensures that individual components can scale independently and maintain high reliability, which is crucial in a system where real-time responsiveness is paramount.
Each battery operation managed by Kraken is optimized using sophisticated analytic tools, with operational plans running 24 hours ahead. Time-series data, vital for understanding energy patterns, is efficiently stored and queried using Redis and InfluxDB. Event-based systems allow for rapid responses to market fluctuations and environmental changes, ensuring optimal energy management.
Looking towards the future, Kraken is also integrating electric vehicles (EVs) into its grid management strategy. By treating EVs as distributed grid-scale batteries and incentivizing charging during periods of low carbon intensity, they are fostering a cooperative consumer model that stabilizes the grid.
Lastly, Bowman concluded his talk with several suggested action items for the industry:
- Continued Investment in Serverless and Cloud-Native: Emphasizing the need for ongoing investment in these scalable technologies to meet the growing demands of renewable energy management.
- Policies for Consumer Cooperation: Advocating for developing policies encouraging consumer participation in energy saving during peak demand times.
- Monitoring Energy Market Policy Changes: Highlighting the importance of closely monitoring evolving energy market policies that could impact energy balancing strategies.
The full talk recording will be available on InfoQ in the coming months.
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