In order to deal with the enormous fluctuations in production that this entails, major steps need to be taken. These are often summarized with the term “Grid Management”. This can include linking power consumption to production, congestion management to prevent overcapacity of the networks and various forms of storage to absorb peak production and make it available at times of production troughs.
Main changes are:
Enova helps to regulate the national energy grid. Due to sustainable production, the instability on the grid is increasing. With our smart-grid solutions we are able to adjust 24/7.
The basis for the stability of the European electricity grid is determined in real time using the grid frequency of 50 Hertz. Enova supports suitable installations in delivering this so-called primary control capacity.
The growth in sustainable electricity production will lead to oversupply at specific nodes in the electricity network.
Integrating energy storage with CHPs, solar panels or wind turbines can quickly shorten the payback period.
The national grid operator (TSO, in the Netherlands this is TenneT) is responsible for managing the balancing of the grid and sends signals to parties that can vary their production and consumption in order to make constant adjustments.
The regional grid operators (DSOs) such as Liander, Stedin and Enexis ensure that there is sufficient capacity to transport the desired power.
The energy suppliers produce electricity and respond to signals from TenneT, in order to absorb fluctuations in supply and demand with their production park or via intraday adjustments to their so-called e-programs.
The number of wind turbines and solar panels is increasing rapidly. This can cause the supply of electricity to suddenly increase sharply on sunny and windy days, which can disrupt the balance of the electricity network. Since 1 January 2017, Enova has been offering national grid operator TenneT Emergency Power Adjustment and Adjustment, in collaboration with our customers. These customers could purchase extra or produce less in exceptional situations. This is all done using software and hardware that allows this to be arranged fully automatically and remotely. Enova bundles the supply of all its customers online and can guarantee that emergency power is always available via this pool, even when you do not have it individually. As a result, Enova customers are not obliged to participate in all peaks and troughs.
Do you generate or consume electricity? Then you can earn money with this and at the same time contribute to a better balance of the Dutch electricity grid.
This fits in with a future with a growing share of sustainable energy!
The basis for the stability of the European electricity grid is determined in real time using the grid frequency of 50 Hertz. Enova supports suitable installations in delivering this so-called primary control capacity. Everywhere in continental Europe, the frequency of the electricity grid moves synchronously around 50 Hertz per second. In the event of a shortage of production and/or surplus of consumption, the frequency will drop below 50 Hertz and when there is a surplus of production or shortage of consumption, the frequency will rise above 50 Hertz. It has been internationally agreed that the maximum permitted deviation may only be 0.2 Hertz.
To achieve this, there are parties in every country that have installations that are able to continuously move their production or consumption with the desired direction in order to keep the grid frequency within the bandwidth. There are also possibilities with batteries because they can both consume (charge) and produce (discharge). Such parties can receive compensation for this balancing from the national grid operator (TSO). Enova can provide insight into whether your installation is also eligible for this and ensure that it participates in our pool for primary control power.
The growth of sustainable electricity production will cause oversupply at specific nodes in the electricity network. Grid reinforcement is then probably an expensive solution, but Enova can also play the role of “traffic controller” to prevent overload.
Since oversupply due to a lot of wind and/or sun will probably only occur for a small part of the time, it could be very expensive and inefficient to adjust the regional and national grids to a single peak in supply. It would be much smarter to apply a regulation to large electricity production and consumption units and to adjust these in a kind of nerve centre to the maximum load that is possible in specific regions. This could then be used to, for example, take part of the production off the grid, in specific parts of the country, in order to prevent the maximum load from being exceeded. Enova has had regulations for 1,000 MW of production units and 500 MW of consumption units for more than 10 years and can also use these for this so-called congestion management.