Power-intensive industry can adjust its consumption of power to the production of power in the grid so that it consumes more in periods of high generation and less in periods of low. The capacity for big load shifting enables industry to be a resource for adequacy. Depending on where the industry is located, it may also offer congestion management. Some facilities currently have an agreement with the TSO where-by the TSO can cut parts of their power supply for a limited time period, typically for compensation. This will certainly help address congestion issues.
Components & enablers
To consume energy only from renewables, the production manufacturing has to be designed in a such a manner that enables it to be turned on and off relatively fast and without incurring high shutdown / start-up costs.
State of the art in application and research
Flexibility from large loads is not new, but some power-intensive industries in Europe are investigating how they can both produce a green product from renewable generation while simultaneously offering ancillary services to grid companies..
The New 4.0 project covered flexibility from aluminium production. All thee projects’ electrolysis plants are in interrupt ability schemes and can be cut out for up to one hour per day by the TSO, providing them with congestion management services.
In STORY and TILOS, the battery storage supports the interoperability of the network systems under demand side management aspects.
Technology Readiness Level
TRL 9 – Implementation
Power-intensive industry already participates in flexibility markets. Projects research how this can be done more (cost-)effectively, and how more flexibility can be offered.
Current focus of R&D and research gaps
Proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis has considerable potential. Research in this area could even further increase the efficiency of hydrogen production.
By setting-up a series of standardised products for grid services at EU level, CoordiNet will define and detail mechanisms for the provision of the needed grid services at distribution and transmission level.
In CROSSBOW, the demand side management concepts extend the Regional Security Center mandatory functions – especially day-ahead adequacy forecast, coordinated security analysis, coordinating capacity calculation, congestion management and outage planning coordination.
References
[1] WindNODE. [Link]
2] New 4.0 [Link]
- Pilot: flexibility from heating facilities. [Link]
- Pilot: flexibility from aluminium production. [Link]
- Pilot: flexibility from steel production. [Link]
[3] OSMOSE WP5. [Link]
[4] CoordiNet [Link]
[5] CROSSBOW [Link]
[6] STORY [Link]
[7] TILOS [Link]
[8] WiseGRID [Link]
[9] WindNODE [Link]
[10] NEBEF [Link]
[11] Enera Markt [Link]