Tailoring Sympower’s flexibility services to a new market - the example of Greece

Our platform efficiently monitors, connects and manages distributed industrial and commercial energy assets on balancing markets across Europe. By using our services, businesses get remunerated for participating in demand response, strengthening the grid and accelerating the energy transition. 

The European regulatory framework now incentivises countries to utilise demand-side flexibility to balance the grid. However, national specificities remain challenging, prompting international aggregators like ourselves to tailor our platform to local requirements. 

Our platform’s successful adaptation to local markets results from a winning formula, combining an expert team and sophisticated software to an extensive European experience. Taking the example of Greece, here’s how we perfected it to answer the market’s needs.

An international expert team supporting local footprint

Our collaboration with the Greek Transmission System Operator (TSO) ADMIE started in 2020. Given our extensive experience in demand-side response, the TSO selected our local experts to work closely together and support them with the opening of balancing markets. 

Supported by our international expert teams, our Greek team shared Sympower’s almost decade-long European experience in balancing markets. Our extensive track record in Europe’s most advanced balancing markets, such as Sweden and Finland, enabled us to anticipate the needs, questions and potential objections of the Greek TSO. 

Working closely with the TSO provided us with a profoundly accurate understanding of the Greek market’s specificities, which we used to tailor our platform and develop specific tools. 

This collaboration culminated in the opening of balancing markets for demand response in 2022. We were the first independent flexibility services provider to enter the market. 

Providing a state-of-the-art demand-side flexibility platform

Guaranteeing smooth participation in balancing markets for our customers is at the core of everything we do. Our platform handles integrations with our customers and TSO, as well as all the forecasting, bidding, monitoring, asset activation and optimisation. While our processes are automated, our teams also work closely with our customers to guarantee they remain in complete control of their assets and processes.

Because our platform is machine-learning driven and we have automatised our process across all markets, we have reduced human error drastically and can always pinpoint the best opportunities for our customers. 

• Asset-agnostic platform guaranteeing seamless integration of various energy assets
  Our in-house-developed algorithm driven by machine learning allows us to integrate all types of energy resources into our platform. The algorithm considers all crucial aspects, such as asset costs, time needed to ramp up or down its consumption, or energy usage. This ensures that regardless of the asset’s energy consumption, we can guarantee that our customers receive maximised revenue. 
• Real-time monitoring and in-depth insights optimising revenue generation
  Our platform collects real-time measurements, giving us a deeper understanding of our customers’ energy resources. This asset-by-asset observation enables us to constantly improve our understanding of the asset’s behaviour and integrate new ones into our portfolio.
  
  This dual approach, combining machine learning and insights gained from our experience in various energy markets, enables us to advise our customers on the entirety of their process, not just the energy assets we control. As a result, we also help them to optimise their general energy strategy. 
  
  In addition to the traditional features provided with our platform, we have developed additional tools tailored to the specific needs of the Greek market and our customers. 
• Optimiser
  The most challenging part of the demand-response analysis is the correct selection of assets, especially when there are multiple asset combinations to calculate in a brief window. 
  
  The key to overcoming this issue lies in understanding the behaviour of the singular resource based on asset-by-asset observation. The optimiser we developed optimises how we select resources and, using real-time data, maximises our customer’s return on investment with the least amount of disruptions.
  
  We have also built the optimiser to be adapted and improved easily on other European markets. 
• Ramp curves and fault tolerance
  Because some energy assets cannot be switched off completely, we have developed a resource ramp curves proof of concept. This tool aims to unlock the most flexibility possible from the resources we integrate into our platform. 
  
  Thanks to our sophisticated optimisation, we can consider the unique requirements of the different resources we manage and ensure we can maximise the revenue obtained from their existing flexibility. 
  
  In addition, the microservices responsible for our operations guarantee that we are always ready to answer the TSO’s activation signal accordingly, with no room for errors. 
• Billing tools
  Our real-time measurements ensure that we comply with ADMIE’s rules at all times while being on continuous activations. These tools also guarantee that our customers receive the correct revenue from their participation in balancing services. 

Harnessing Sympower’s pan-European experience 

In addition to our expertise in the Nordics with balancing with generation, we have conducted several pilots across Europe with TSOs to gain valuable insights and expertise on balancing with consumption. 

In the Netherlands, we worked with TenneT to explore how to open the Automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR) to independent aggregated demand-side resources, move away from hardware-oriented interfaces, aggregate a pool of assets from different energy suppliers and how flexible bidding opens opportunities for a new type of distributed assets.

By participating in various pilots across Europe and in more mature energy markets, we can share our expertise with the TSO in new markets and develop a business case for demand response that will benefit all market participants. In energy markets that are yet to open to independent aggregation, this also enables us to pre-qualify with the TSO and accelerate companies’ participation in demand-side flexibility once the market opens. 

Our unique approach to balancing services blends European expertise with a deep understanding of local nuances. Through collaborative partnerships, we delve deep into market intricacies and use those insights to add specialised tools to our platform. Our mission is to empower commercial and industrial businesses and unlock new revenue streams for them through demand-side flexibility. 

Below you can find a handy PDF file with the article summary.

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