Eneco connects assets to its Virtual Power Plant for the energy system of the future
Eneco is going to link all its wind farms, solar parks, batteries, and other smaller and larger assets to the Myriad Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platform that it has developed. This is a first: at present, there are no similar VPPs of this scale in operation in the Netherlands. VPPs are important because on the way to the sustainable energy system of the future, more flexibility is needed to ensure that the electricity grid remains in balance and to become less dependent on the fossil fuels that we currently use for this purpose.
More and more wind farms, solar parks and large batteries are being built and more and more households and companies are using sustainable solutions such as solar panels, heat pumps and electric cars (also referred to as assets). As a result, there is a growing network of small and large sustainable assets, all of which are connected to the electricity grid. This presents challenges, especially for maintaining grid balance. The wind is not always strong and the sun does not always shine and, right now, we are often still dependent on gas and coal-fired power plants at times when not enough sustainable electricity is being produced. By contrast, on sunny and windy days there can be a surplus of sustainable electricity for which there is no demand.
In the VPP Myriad, Eneco combines every small and large asset to form a large power plant, as it were, allowing it to control and optimise these assets from a central point via smart software. Myriad’s ability to switch assets on or off within a few seconds and thus offer flexibility to keep the Dutch electricity grid in balance makes it easier to cope with situations when too little or too much sustainable electricity is being produced.
In concrete terms this means, for example, that households can have their charging stations connected to Myriad. At times when a lot of sustainable electricity is being generated by solar panels and wind turbines, the VPP can switch on the charging stations to charge the connected cars or the VPP can heat up electric boilers. This way, the capacity of the electricity grid is used as efficiently as possible. It also works the other way around: in the near future Myriad will, for example, be able to feed the electricity in the batteries of electric cars back into the grid when there is a power shortage on the grid. Naturally, this will only happen if a customer has given permission for this.
Thousands of local sustainable assets can be connected, ranging from wind and solar farms to batteries and electric boilers. Myriad helps to reduce unnecessary fossil energy consumption when the supply of sustainable energy is low or to reduce the load on the electricity grid when supply is high. By being the connected to the VPP, companies and households not only help to make the energy system more sustainable, but they can also generate income. This is particularly the case for the use of vehicle-to-grid technology (feeding electricity from an electric car back to the electricity grid) and batteries because these make it possible for a VPP to store sustainably generated electricity and use it for consumption at a later time. Companies, households and owners of electric cars will receive compensation for the electricity supplied.
Myriad thus plays a significant role in shaping the future energy system. Integration is one of the central pillars of Eneco's strategy and its ambition to be climate neutral by 2035. New assets can be connected quickly, including third party assets. With Myriad, Eneco is taking a big step towards becoming a digital energy company. In combination with its own trading floor, it enables Eneco to maximise the value of the flexibility that assets can offer by optimally integrating supply and demand of sustainably generated electricity.