Energa produced the first negawatts for PSE

The Energa Group used demand management for the first time to maintain the stability of the power system. Enspirion, an Energa Group company, on PSE’s request, reduced energy consumption by some of the clients for 4 hours.  

The Stimulated Capacity Reduction was executed by Enspirion under the 20 negawatt (NW) agreement entered into with the Polish Power Grid (PSE) last year. The reduction was primarily a test exercise. Enspirion, which plays the role of the so-called aggregator, withdrew 20 MW of demand for capacity from the system, fully delivering the contracted volume and confirming the efficiency of the Stimulated Capacity Reduction process. In accordance with the agreement, the reduction lasted 4 hours and the time for client preparation for the reduction was 7 hours. At the same time the company tested emergency procedures for situations when, for example, one of the clients does not deliver the declared reduction of capacity. Verification of the possibility of flexible management of business client demand constitutes a key value brought into the system by aggregators.

In addition to the 20 NW agreement, Enspirion has already signed an agreement with PSE for further 77 NW and won the latest tender procedure. The company has been consistently strengthening its leading position in the Polish demand management market. In addition to the agreements signed with the transmission system operator, it commercially generates negawatt hours as part of its cooperation with Energa Obrót’s business clients. Recently Enspirion carried out several such projects, developing an innovative business model allowing both clients and sellers to generate profits. Clients are rewarded for temporary shift of energy consumption and sellers, as a consequence, do not incur the costs of energy acquisition at the highest, peak-time price. For example, last year the maximum energy price in peak time exceeded 1,300 PLN/MWh, whereas the average price was in the range of approx. 180 PLN/MWh.

Demand management or flattening the curve

The Energa Group is Poland’s leader in electricity demand management and its actions are aimed at optimum utilization of the capacities available in the system. Flattening the consumption profile is a great supplementation of development of capacity, some of which secures the system only for several tens of hours of the biggest demand in the year. Development of demand management on a large scale may turn out even more effective as the role of unstable renewable energy sources increases in the Polish system. Wind farms, on windy days, supply more energy than the biggest Polish power plant fueled by hard coal. This means that on days when there is no wind, a relatively large amount of energy disappears from the system. Hence electricity demand management brings a number of benefits for the whole power system, including, primarily, system balancing flexibility and, as a consequence, increased security of electricity supply.

Enspirion, which was the first in Poland to commercially shift business consumption in time, currently has the capacity of 300 NW, and by the end of 2015 it intends to increase its potential to 500 NW. This year the company intends also to offer a demand management product to Distribution Network Operators. Demand control is possible also in the household segment (thanks to smart AMI meters) which the Energa Group showed as the first. During AMI consumer tests carried out among retail clients in Kalisz, capacity demand reduction on request amounted to as much as 30%. At the same time, clients reduced total electricity consumption from 2 to 4% and in peak hours from 5 to 14%. Energa Operator has already installed over 400 thousand such devices and is the leader in their implementation in Poland. 

Products for clients with smart meters are developed by Energa Obrót. Already more than seven thousand clients use the possibility of current monitoring and improved control of consumption, which makes the company a leader in consumer smart metering solutions in Poland. In parallel, the company executes pilot projects, such as “ENERGA Living Lab”, in which clients use multi-zone Pricing Programs with variable rates for electricity during the day/week/season and innovative services such as energy consumption reports and Home Area Network energy management system.

The Energa Group is one of the four largest energy groups in Poland and the market leader in terms of the percentage of electricity generated from renewable sources. The Group’s core business entails distribution, generation and sales of electrical energy. The Group supplies and sells electricity to 2.9 million clients, both households and businesses.

The Energa Group is the third largest integrated distribution system operator (DSO) in Poland in terms of volume of energy supply. The distribution grid consists of power lines with a total length of over 184 thousand km and covers almost 75 thousand square kilometers, i.e. about 24% of the country’s landmass.