Moving flexibility to real world implementation

BeFlexible and ENFLATE, both part of the Energy Nexus cluster, approach flexibility from two different but complementary aspects – BeFlexible on regulatory strategies and market frameworks to incentivise system operators to procure flexibility and ENFLATE on how to engage end users in flexibility provision.

They also are equally important. José Pablo positions regulatory design as the “hidden engine” in the energy transition, stating that if the regulatory framework rewards the DSOs for building more cables rather than procurement of flexibility, then it won’t be deployed at scale.

Likewise Katerina highlights the need to put “citizens at the centre” of the transition, with ENFLATE taking the novel approach of combining other services such as mobility and healthcare – a health monitoring app is in development, for example – to stimulate engagement.

While a lot of effort is going on in these and other projects on flexibility, a key question is whether the current market structures are ready for its large scale deployment.

Both José Pablo and Katerina have deep insights as respectively chair and vice-chair of the Bridge regulation work group.

“Not yet,” says José Pablo, commenting that the move is in the right direction but there is still work to do, in particular translating the Clean Energy Package into national regulatory practice has been slow and uneven.

Drawing on the approach in ENFLATE with the Greek national regulatory authority as a project partner, Katerina adds that the projects should engage and interact more with these authorities as “a way to cover the regulatory gaps more quickly”.

Both projects rely heavily on digitalisation and data-driven services and a core need in the projects is to balance innovation with concerns around cybersecurity, interoperability and data governance.

With potentially thousands of small actors becoming participants in DSO flexibility markets, interoperability and cybersecurity was a pre-condition for the market design in BeFlexible.

ENFLATE utilises the concept of data spaces and ensures that the data remains at a local level with an anonymisation service to maintain privacy.

Ultimately the aim of these and indeed all projects is to scale and enable replication across Europe.

José Pablo says that there is a need for capacity building in flexibility, particularly for the large number of small DSOs that lack the internal expertise to run flexibility markets, while Katerina highlights the need for standardisation so that solutions can be readily deployed.

“We need to build systems that can remain modular and that components can be easily added.”

LISTEN NOW

Listen to previous episodes:
DC Power: Rethinking energy
How BuildON and OpenLab are digitalising buildings and neighbourhoods