AutoGrid Systems, a demand response software company based in Redwood City,
The Eneco Group, an energy company that provides power to more than two million customers in the Netherlands and Belgium, built the virtual power plant using AutoGrid System’s controls and automation software platform.
Eneco is redefining the marketer’s role in the power supply chain. Rather than providing a one-directional link channeling the flow of power from producers to consumers, Eneco is trying to enable behind the meter generation by creating an automated platform that monetizes distributed energy resources in wholesale electricity markets.
The software platform will initially manage 100 megawatts (MW) of dispatchable resources, including several customer-sited cogeneration plants, industrial demand response and other flexible distributed energy resources.
The reason the software is critical is because it transforms a portfolio of distributed generating and demand-side resources with different operating attributes and cost structures into a standard commodity that can participate in the wholesale power market.
"By offering us increased control over our flexible portfolio, AutoGrid's Software Defined Power Plant enables us to integrate alternative flexible energy resources into our portfolio and subsequently a larger amount of intermittent renewables, helping our customers reduce their energy costs and helping us get a higher return on our renewable assets," said Michel Engelen, the Head of Portfolio Management at Eneco.
In other words, the Software-Defined Power Plant will allow Eneco to manage a vast network of distributed energy resources as if it were a single power plant. It can schedule, optimize and control generation in real-time in response to market signals from Dutch wholesale electricity markets run by the Dutch Transmission System Operator (TSO).
"Data-driven applications will enable energy leaders to discover new sources of revenue and innovative ways to engage with their end customers in the highly-competitive European market," said Dr. Amit Narayan, the chief executive officer of AutoGrid, in a press release.
While the Software-Defined Power Plant concept seems like a no-brainer for large companies in any market, there are likely significant regulatory hurdles that would prevent (or at least significantly complicate) efforts to commercialize the concept in the United States. In particular, unlike the Netherlands, the market rules used to determine the price distributed generators pay for using the transmission and distribution grid in most regions of the U.S. are either punitive, non-existent or ambiguous - and sometimes all three.
