Drax completes Flexitricity purchase adding AI tools to its BESS operations

Drax has completed its acquisition of Flexitricity, adding the AI-based optimizer business to its growing battery-focused portfolio.

Better known for its pumped-hydro storage assets, UK energy company Drax has been increasing its exposure to Britain’s BESS market in recent months and made headlines earlier in 2026 when it signed a 15-year tolling agreement with Zenobe.

Drax has decades of experience with Great Britain’s electricity market and has a 24/7 power trading desk in Yorkshire, England. Speaking with ESS News in early March, Ash Hein, FlexGen business development director at Drax explained why the Flexitricity purchase made sense for the experienced operator.

“It’s very credible that they’ve been in the market for 20 years optimizing flexible assets,” Hein said.  “If you look at any BESS assets and understand and think about how they trade, when you look at trades for BESS they might do 100 trades a day for one single asset, going in and out of different markets that they might trade in, some ancillary, some balancing, and some wholesale, all in the same day, switching and out of different markets.

“That ability to think about how you optimize a BESS asset, it does lend itself to machine learning, AI technology, which is exactly what Flexitricity brings.”

The FlexGen director noted that before acquiring Flexitricity, Drax lacked the AI-informed battery trading capability the company could offer – describing it as a natural fit.

Founded in 2004, Flexitricity provides optimization and route-to-market services for flexible energy assets. The company offers front-of and behind-the-meter solutions for grid scale assets as well as demand response services to over 900 MW of operational assets with capacity over 900MW, according to Flexitricity. These are primarily battery energy storage systems (BESS), gas peakers, renewables and demand-side response.

Announcing the completed acquisition, Drax said Flexitricity will support its plans to develop a “gigawatt-scale pipeline of BESS opportunities.” This will include physical assets and the capability to optimize third-party BESS projects through route-to-market, floor and tolling structures.