ENERGA has generated the first negawatts in Poland

Enspirion, a company belonging to the Energa Group, has slashed its demand for electricity during peak hours by one-half. The campaign covered Energa's business clients.

On 18 and 19 September, upon commission from Energa Obrót, Enspirion carried out the first two in Poland commercial campaigns under which Energa Obrót's clients reduced their electricity consumption. The first campaign lasted for two hours, and the second – four hours. Reduction of electricity consumption was achieved when a dozen or so business clients voluntarily joined the campaign in exchange for financial benefits. The purpose of the campaign was to shift part of the clients' demand for electricity to off-peak hours, and thereby optimize the price.

- The campaign proved the effectiveness of the demand control mechanism to create the so-called negawatts, thereby increasing the stability of the grid and – most importantly – giving financial benefits to the clients, who actively and voluntarily participated in the electricity consumption reduction program. Please note that benefits of negawatts are achieved through smart management of information which is already available – without the need to incur significant financial expenditures. The success of this initial power reduction program is an important step towards development of modern power industry, but we are not going to rest on our laurels – says Mirosław Bieliński, President of Energa SA.

Enspirion is already working on making the offer for end users more attractive through changing the negawatts contracting model towards an up-front fee for readiness. In addition, it is conducting projects enabling it to provide demand side response services also to small clients. One of the examples of such efforts is a just-completed year-long survey conducted in Kalisz. As part of the survey, retail clients were provided with intelligent AMI meters thanks to which they were able to cut their electricity consumption (and thereby generate savings) during peak hours by 5 to 14 percent (thanks to Time-of-Use-Pricing, clients may schedule certain tasks requiring large amounts of power to off-peak hours or weekends), and they reduced power consumption on the grid operator's side by as much as 30 percent.

- Of course, we can balance our grid by building more power plants. However, construction of each subsequent megawatt of generating capacity costs the taxpayers – depending on technology – from PLN 3 million to 25 million, as well as several hundred thousand PLN per annum in fixed maintenance expenses. Demand Side Response is an excellent addition to the power generation system. Most importantly, it solves the problem of demand for energy during the so-called peak hours. As far as the economic aspect is concerned, the expenditures related to its deployment may be as much as one-hundred times smaller. In addition, those expenditures will be largely returned to end users in the form of revenues on account of provision of power reduction services – adds Bieliński.

At the beginning of the year, Enspirion won PSE's tender for negawatts. Upon PSE's commission, it will be providing services consisting in reduction of clients' electricity consumption. Reductions will be achieved on the basis of the technical resources of 13 companies, and it will total 20 MW. Two weeks ago, Enspirion submitted another offer to PSE for additional 77 MW.

Enspirion is the first company in Poland to provide Demand Side Response services. The company aggregates the clients' energy reduction potential throughout the country, offering them the opportunity to earn profits from something that previously was only their expense – electric power.