Optimus Energy, the largest RES Aggregator in Greece, a HERON SA subsidiary, and Sympower, Greece’s largest flexibility services provider, are joining forces to enable Optimus Energy’s customers across Greece to participate in demand response services. Just this year, they will provide over 230MW of aggregated flexible resources to balancing markets, strengthening Greece’s electricity grid and accelerating its energy transition. 

“Optimus Energy has gained the trust of most RES producers in Greece and has established itself in the RES market, achieving a steady growth rate and increasing its portfolio. As part of our strategy to align with national and European goals for the natural and energy environment, to create new sources of revenue for our customers without investment cost and to deliver value to our shareholders, we seek to provide new and innovative services such as Demand Response, and will soon expand into stand-alone battery storage optimization and active management of distributed renewable energy plants“ - Stella Zacharia, CEO of Optimus Energy

Demand Response: Increasing Grid Stability and Bringing New Income

Demand response enables energy-intensive consumers, such as commercial and industrial businesses, to alter the consumption of their flexible, non-critical equipment when requested by the grid operator to stabilise the electricity grid and prevent power outages. Flexible, non-critical equipment can vary its consumption during peak demand hours without impacting the operation of the business, following a signal received from the TSO IPTO/ΑΔΜΗΕ. The TSO remunerates demand response participants for making their capacity available to the grid and, when activated, for balancing it.

Therefore, the active participation of an energy-intensive consumer in Demand Response increases network security and provides a new revenue source for the consumer.

Unlocking the Inner Flexibility of Energy-Intensive Equipment

Sympower’s demand response software platform unlocks the flexibility of energy-intensive equipment, such as furnaces and rolling mills, reducing their consumption at the TSO’s request to stabilise the grid. Meanwhile, Optimus Energy undertakes the real-time development and implementation of the optimal strategy enabling the participation of these types of equipment in the mFRR up balancing market, formulating and submitting the corresponding offers, and maximising the economic benefit.

A consumer wishing to participate in the mFRR up balancing market must be able to reduce their consumption within 15 minutes of receiving a signal from the grid operator. The planning implementation requires the active participation of the consumer, who knows best of all the equipment of his business. Companies able to provide at least 1MWh per day can expect annual additional gross revenues of 45 thousand euros per megawatt.    

“OPTIMUS ENERGY, member of the vertically integrated HERON Energy Group, which has established itself as one of the largest suppliers to industrial and commercial customers, is broadening the spectrum of energy cost reduction services enjoyed by HERON customers. Since Sympower has the most advanced Demand Response platform in the country, it made sense to partner with them to enable our Group’s customers to quickly and successfully participate in the Demand Response market. The strength of this partnership is our shared cutting-edge expertise, its complementarity and our passion for sustainable energy development. We look forward to having more companies onboard and ‘unlock’ new revenue streams by offering grid balancing services, optimizing their load management and its economic benefits as well as adding significant value to their partnership with the HERON Group”- Costas Baslis, Chairman of the Board of Optimus Energy and Director of Energy Management at HERON

Strengthening Sympower’s Market Leading Position

Since entering Greece’s balancing markets in June of 2023, Sympower has been managing the largest demand response portfolio, comprising 70MW of aggregated flexible resources. The partnership with Optimus Energy cements Sympower’s leading position and secures the future of independent demand response aggregation as a crucial tool to stabilise the grid and accelerate the country’s energy transition. 

“Thanks to this partnership with Optimus Energy, we can now provide the grid with nearly 300MW of flexible energy resources daily. We’re very proud to collaborate with an energy market leader such as Optimus Energy and the HERON Group, enabling them and their customers to enter demand response. This partnership leverages Optimus Energy’s commercial and trading capacity with our expertise in demand response and experience working with Vattenfall in the Nordics. We are confident this will be a fruitful and long-lasting collaboration” - Konstantinos Athanasopoulos, Sympower’s Commercial Director in Greece

Optimus Energy and Sympower are now exploring expanding their partnership by onboarding additional customers and products.