Power demand response plan
Aluminium of Greece has become the first industry to utilize the demand response service in the balancing market, in which electricity is bought and sold in real time to ensure the stability of the electricity system.
Until recently, balancing services were offered to the system for a fee only by conventional power plants, resulting in high prices due to limited competition. Through the demand response service, bids can now be submitted to the balancing market by Demand Response Cumulative Representation Entities that have been licensed by the Regulatory Authority for Energy (RAE) and represent industries and other large consumers.
When ADMIE, which operates the balancing market, finds that it needs additional energy to that which has been declared in the next day’s market in order to cover the demand, it will be able to get an offer from a demand response entity for the energy that will be released, limiting the output of the customer portfolio. The demand side, that is, gives the system at that moment the energy that a conventional unit would produce. The ADMIE platform algorithm will choose whether to buy the balancing energy from a generation unit or from the demand side, based on the lowest offer.
Demand response prevents the need to operate expensive generating units during periods of increased demand, thereby reducing generation costs and prices for all wholesale electricity buyers. Although the regulatory framework of the demand response service was completed on June 30, 2022, it was activated at end-April 2023 with the successful participation of Aluminium of Greece, after concerted efforts both on the part of Mytilineos, which introduced the first such entity in Greece, and from ADMIE’s side, after testing the functionality of the relevant platform in terms of the participation of loads (end consumers) in the balancing market.
In addition to working with large commercial and industrial customers, Mytilineos has the ability to make it easier for small and medium-sized businesses to access demand response services by aggregating more individual customer loads into a larger portfolio.
Three more companies are following in the footsteps of Mytilineos, namely PPC, Elpedison and Sympower Greece.
