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In a deal with flexibility provider Sympower, Optimus Energy enabled its customers across Greece to participate in demand response services. They said they are adding 230 MW of resources to the balancing market this year.
Optimus Energy, the largest green electricity aggregator of renewable electricity in Greece, and Sympower, the largest flexibility services provider in the country, joined forces to bolster demand response services. Optimus is a subsidiary of electricity supplier Heron Energy Group, part of the GEK Terna conglomerate.
Sympower said the move is strengthening the electricity grid in Greece and accelerating the energy transition.
Optimus Energy said it has gained the trust of most renewable electricity producers in Greece.
“As part of our strategy to align with national and European goals for the natural and energy environment, to create new sources of revenue for our customers without investment cost and to deliver value to our shareholders, we seek to provide new and innovative services such as demand response, and will soon expand into standalone battery storage optimization and active management of distributed renewable energy plants,” Chief Executive Officer Stella Zacharia said.
Demand response boosting grid stability, bringing income
Demand response enables energy-intensive consumers, such as commercial and industrial businesses, to alter the consumption of their flexible, non-critical equipment when requested by the grid operator to stabilize the electricity grid and prevent power outages.
The consumption of flexible, non-critical installations can vary during peak demand hours without impacting the operation of the business. The system is run via signals from the Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO). The country’s transmission system operator, also known as Admie in Greek, remunerates demand response participants for making their capacity available to the grid and, when activated, for balancing it.
That way energy-intensive consumers strengthen network security and tap on a new revenue source, Sympower pointed out.
Unlocking flexibility of energy-intensive equipment
Sympower’s demand response software platform unlocks the flexibility of energy-intensive equipment, such as furnaces and rolling mills, reducing their consumption at the request of the operator-TSO. At the same time, Optimus Energy is responsible for enabling optimal participation of such equipment in the manual frequency restoration reserve (mFRR) up market, formulating and submitting the corresponding offers, and maximizing the economic benefit.
Consumers within the mFRR up market are able to lower their consumption within 15 minutes of receiving a signal from the grid operator. Companies able to provide at least 1 MWh per day can expect annual additional gross revenues of EUR 45,000 per MW of capacity, Sympower explained.
Greece’s TSO remunerates demand response participants for making their capacity available to the grid and, when activated, for balancing it
Heron said it enabled Optimus Energy’s customers to participate in the partner company’s demand response platform, adding it is the most advanced in Greece.
“We look forward to having more companies onboard and unlock new revenue streams by offering grid balancing services, optimizing their load management and its economic benefits as well as adding significant value to their partnership with the Heron Group”, according to Chairman of the Board of Optimus Energy and Heron’s Director of Energy Management, Costas Baslis.
Sympower entered Greece’s balancing markets in June last year. Its demand response portfolio comprises 70 MW of aggregated flexible resources.
“We can now provide the grid with nearly 300 MW of flexible energy resources daily… This partnership leverages Optimus Energy’s commercial and trading capacity with our expertise in demand response and experience working with Vattenfall in the Nordics,” Sympower’s Commercial Director in Greece Konstantinos Athanasopoulos stated.
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