Germany’s Enpal announces launch of virtual power plant

Enpal, a Berlin-based provider of photovoltaic-based energy systems, claims its virtual power plant (VPP), developed with Entrix, will be a “next generation” network.

VPPs involve small solar and battery systems having their capacity bundled and marketed as one entity.

Enpal has made the claim about its network based on the expertise of partner Entrix, which specializes in the algorithm-controlled marketing of flexible energy systems.

The Flexa joint venture founded by the two companies, in which Enpal holds a controlling stake, was announced in June 2024.

Flexa says the first 1,000 households in its VPP will have around 5 MW of battery systems with 10 MWh of storage capacity plus 8 MW of solar generation capacity.

That appears modest compared to Sonnen’s 250 MWh from 25,000 systems, with the latter company having been a pioneer with its VPP since 2018. Enpal says all its customers can be included in its VPP in future, opening up around 80,000 further small scale systems.

Requirements

A solar array and battery are minimum requirements for Flexa’s VPP but heat pumps can also be included with the network marketing electricity generation and consumption. The more controllable components a household has, the more trading volume it can bring into the network.

The first VPPs in Germany banked revenue from providing primary control energy – to rapidly ease out short term grid fluctuations – as well as from arbitrage – charging batteries when energy prices are low, or negative, and discharging during peak demand periods.

With the primary control market in Germany now saturated, Flexa’s VPP will be geared for arbitrage via very short-term transactions. The network will target trades on the five-minute-pricing-interval continuous intraday market.

Intraday transactions take seconds and many involve balance-sheet trades, without any real energy delivery. That ensures algorithms are necessary to control such trades. Such swift trading can ensure participants can be helped to save “up to twice as much energy costs as other virtual power plants,” said Enpal in a press release.

The new VPP has actually been conducting trades since October 2024, Enpal Chief Product Officer Benjamin Merle and Flexa Chief Technology Officer Sébastien Shikora told pv magazine. The VPP has to be rebalanced to facilitate direct marketing of energy and talks are underway with grid operators to achieve this. Flexa expects half of its current VPP will be integrated by 2026.

The VPP will be tied to Enpal hardware in the form of the Enpal One energy management system that is supplied with the company’s products, plus a relatively small number of suitable inverters.

Contracts will have to be changed for participating Enpal customers who will then be eligible for a slice of VPP marketing revenue in addition to Enpal electricity tariffs. It is envisaged participants will be allowed to leave the VPP at any time.

From pv magazine Deutschland.