Escozon and ODE, the FLEXCoop Dutch cooperative partners, are participating in a Dutch pilot on balancing services to the grid.
Providing cooperatives’ renewables access to the balancing market
This pilot led by the Dutch TSO TenneT investigates the possibilities of supplying flexibility with the help of blockchain technology.
The goal would be to use wind farms and solar plants for balancing the grid. In theory, wind turbines can run less, or electricity can be diverted to a storage facility. The pilot must show whether this works and whether there is a revenue model for cooperatives with solar plants and wind farms.
[Image courtesy of Frans Harteveld ]
Looking at commercial application for FLEXCoop
In line with this, the parties are also investigating whether the technical possibilities developed within FLEXCoop can be linked to the TenneT pilot so the flexibility from households with heat-pumps can be used for net balancing as well. This could create opportunities for cooperatives to be active on the energy market.
Coal and gas-fired power stations are the conservative energy sources with control capacity. The Dutch pilot is intended to investigate which alternative forms of control power are available to take over this role from fossil power plants.