Cultivation Innovation: The Family-Run Greenhouse Growing their Revenue with Energy Flexibility

Nestled in Finland’s picturesque landscape is Piltin Puutarha Greenhouse. The thriving plant nursery has found success not only by growing their produce but also its revenues through Sympower’s demand response services.

Operating since 1978 and led by its CEO Hanna Leena Helenius, this family-run business of 16 employees has become a beacon of sustainability. Sympower identified Piltin Puutarha as an ideal partner for energy flexibility services that nurture and prioritise a shared commitment to a greener future. 

Pioneering Smaller Greenhouse Flexibility in Finland

Finland’s greenhouses are prime candidates for flexibility services. Their year-round cultivation requires warmth and light that protect young crops from harsh Nordic winters. These lights could be a major operational overhead, but through demand response participation, they can also be a source of additional income. 

In 2016, Sympower’s Finnish team connected with Piltin Puutarha CEO Hanna to explore how demand response could potentially benefit their businesses’ bottom line and promote sustainability. Our experts provided a detailed and comprehensive explanation of how demand response works as a cost-saving solution. This led to a pilot installation of Sympower’s hardware.

“The installation was really easy. After talking to Sympower about the process, they came and installed everything. I didn’t have to do a thing! Sympower even called my local electrician to help with the installation,” said Hanna. 

At the time, Sympower was a pioneer in the market, as competitors overlooked small companies. This meant Sympower was the only independent aggregator in Finland who saw the power and potential of smaller companies' energy assets like Hanna’s greenhouse. The pilot with Piltin Puutarha was a success, and in 2017, the project was connected to Fingrid. After a positive experience with Sympower offering their assets on the FCR-D Up markets, Sympower expanded their services with Piltin Puutarha on the FCR-D Down markets. 

Making the Most of Flexibility through Energy Balancing Markets

Sympower works with businesses to sell their existing energy assets’ flexibility on balancing markets, helping to stabilise the grid frequency. In Nordic countries like Finland, there are types of balancing markets including the FCR: Frequency Containment Reserve for Normal Operation (FCR-N) and the Frequency Containment Reserve for Disturbances (FCR-D).

Initially, Piltin was participating in FCR-D Up markets. The initial assets activated were the greenhouse lights, offering up to 2,27 MW of power that could be turned off during power demand spikes. But with more markets opening in Finland, they expanded to FCR-D Down markets too with an additional 1MW of asset flexibility. Now, Sympower can remotely turn the greenhouse lights on and off, increasing their overall flexibility and maximising the revenue they generate. Together, Piltin Puutarha Greenhouse and Sympower now manage 3,27 MW on the FCR-D Up and FCR-D Down markets, with activations a couple of times per month.  

Payments for these activations depend on whether flexibility is offered on the yearly market or hourly market. The yearly market is an annual contract-based market which offers a fixed price for the year, whereas hourly market payments are variable payments based on the highest bid for one hour of capacity. 

“We’re always trying to give our customers as much flexibility and control over their assets as possible. For Piltin Puutarha, we were able to expand the balancing markets it was participating in to give them even greater returns for their contributions.” - Oscar Karlsson, TSE Team Lead, Sympower Finland 

With Sympower, Piltin Puutarha Greenhouse was able to unlock the economic and environmental benefits of demand response despite the business having no prior knowledge of the service or flexibility solutions.

A Cost-Saving Energy Solution with Environmental Benefits

While Piltin Puutarha’s greenhouse lights are a central part of the infrastructure’s daily operations, utilising them to balance the Finnish grid does not interfere with core business processes. By utilising the flexibility of their existing equipment and being remunerated for balancing the grid, the company is earning thousands of euros in gross revenue annually. 

Commenting on how demand response has impacted their business Hanna said:

“We get a notification alerting us. But in the greenhouse, the lights briefly turn off and on again. But it’s so short that we’ve seen no impact on our crop growth, even during the winter days. What’s more, it generates a nice amount of money for us too.”

Piltin Puutarha happily reports that they are seeing a major return on their demand response involvement. Their actions are helping to integrate renewable energy sources for a more sustainable grid for Finland. 

“I wasn’t aware of the environmental benefits of demand response at first,” said Hanna. “But after working with Sympower, it’s something I want to share with my customers, so they know we are dedicated to sustainable change.”

Sympower has delivered a positive return for Piltin Puutarha’s involvement in demand response as their chosen partner for energy flexibility services and will continue to nurture and prioritise a greener future for Finland.