Participation for Large Businesses
1As a large commercial entity, you can participate in GOPACS by flexibly managing your energy consumption and production.
Participation in GOPACS is of interest to any market party that can influence electricity consumption or generation and thereby trade flexibility. Market parties generally refer to companies that are structurally involved in energy trading, such as energy suppliers, aggregators, and PV parties.
The product you can participate with as a market party in congestion management depends on when you want to participate and the associated contract. If you have a capacity restriction contract (day-ahead), you can participate directly via GOPACS. If it concerns redispatch (intraday), this always goes through a CSP and a trading platform. The conclusion of the correct contract is done through your network operator, except for voluntary bids via redispatch.
Market parties that want to contribute to congestion management can make agreements with their network operator. This is done in their contract. If it concerns a capacity restriction contract, it can be on demand or within a fixed time window. In all cases, these are agreements regarding flexibility in consumption or return delivery. These contracts are then called up via GOPACS by the network operator.
GOPACS plays an important role in managing congestion on the Dutch electricity grid. The platform is a joint initiative of the Dutch network operators of the electricity network. Parties with flexible capacity available can offer this on GOPACS. Network operators use this capacity to solve congestion.
Grid operators increasingly face grid congestion. GOPACS allows participants to easily help resolve congestion situations with their available flexibility. Participating in GOPACS also provides additional earning opportunities with your flexible assets.
The ability of parties in the congestion area and parties outside it is needed. This is because grid operators must maintain balance on the grid at all times. GOPACS thus provides a win-win situation: grid operators can solve congestion situations and participants can generate additional revenue.
To be able to submit flex bids through GOPACS, you need an accreditation as a CSP. You can request this through TenneT. You can also have your flex bids handled by a CSP. You don’t then have to be a CSP yourself. They collect demand and supply from their clients and place bids on behalf of their clients. On TenneT’s website you can find a complete overview of all recognized CSPs.
Grid operators do as much as possible to avoid transportation restrictions. Unfortunately, due to huge demand, this is not always possible. In some cases, with the help of our customers who have flex available, we can mitigate the congestion situation. This often involves a short period such as a few weeks in winter, for example.
This prevents problems on the power grid. However, this does not mean that this will also make additional capacity available for companies to expand their electricity capacity. This is another step further that in many cases is unfortunately not possible until we have the power grid upgraded or expanded with an additional station.
Unfortunately, that is not possible. The grid operators use the date of entry for all applications to determine the order of priority.
Whether or not to participate in making flex bids is separate from that. However, it is of course true that our goal with the flex bids is to reduce congestion situations c.q. fix it and that all customers benefit from it.
Yes, even in non-market-based congestion management, deployment of a CSP is mandatory. As an affiliate, you must be an approved CSP yourself or be represented by a CSP. The CSP then submits bids on your behalf.
