Eneco chooses Gradyent to use flexibility in Utrecht power and heating assets
Eneco has deepened its partnership with Gradyent to unlock the full flexibility potential of its heat and energy production and distribution assets in Utrecht. Eneco will integrate Gradyent’s real-time Digital Twin into its own trading and operational systems to further optimise energy trading and heat and energy production. All this will be done in conjunction with Eneco’s Myriad Virtual Power Plant (VPP).
Eneco’s Utrecht heating and energy production is an integrated system with two combined heat and power plants, a biomass heat plant, four heat pumps, two electric boilers and five decentralised buffer tanks, all serving around 60,000 connected households through a complex hydraulic network.
Complexities of the system, such as heat transport times, ramp rates & other physical limitations make it operationally challenging to maximize flexible power capacity while maintaining reliability of the heating system. Gradyent’s Digital Twin provides a physics-based view of the system and allows Eneco to use real time data from the system - such as temperatures, flow rates and pressures – to identify the true flexible capacity available. The system also helps identify and prevent potential operational bottlenecks which could hinder the use of this flexible capacity.
Orchestrated by Eneco’s own VPP, Gradyent’s Digital Twin continuously optimizes the Utrecht system for energy cost and market value – recommending which assets to run, at what output, and at what network temperatures, based on real-time electricity prices. This provides Eneco’s VPP with even more fine-grained control to better incorporate the flexibility of its Utrecht power and heating system.
“What Eneco is doing in Utrecht is a blueprint for the future of how district heating integrates into flexible energy portfolios. In the collaboration between Gradyent & Eneco, the end-to-end Digital Twin at the heart of real-time operations is becoming the missing link between trading ambition and physical network reality. This unlocks value in the trading optimization whilst ensuring that operations do not need to adjust continually.”
"Flexibility in the energy system is becoming more and more important as the amount of green power increases, and we try to match the moments that we consume power with the moments that green power is available. At Eneco we try to use our assets in the best possible way so that we can maximally leverage the flexibility within. This is good for us, but also for the energy system as a whole, as it helps to match supply and demand of energy. The integration of Gradyent’s Digital Twin into our systems helps us to optimally use the entire Utrecht/Nieuwegein city heating network and the power plants in Utrecht, while maintaining the high reliabilty that our customers expect.”