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Mandatory Bidding Contract Redispatch (intraday)

With a bidding obligation contract, you commit to making flexible power available at certain times. This means you can reduce your electricity consumption or increase your production at pre-agreed times to help reduce congestion on the grid.

These contracts provide stability and predictability for both the grid operator and your company, and you receive a market-based fee for the flexibility provided.

Redispatch in Two Forms

If you offer your flexible capacity on the day it is needed, we refer to it as intraday and redispatch.
Within redispatch, there are two types of contracts:

  • Voluntary Market Offers (simply referred to as redispatch)
  • Mandatory Redispatch (called bid obligation contracts); this page focuses on the latter.

Mandatory Bidding Contract

The bid obligation contract pertains to mandatory redispatch. This involves capacity that is needed intraday, meaning on the same day.

  • A bid obligation contract remains in effect until the network expansion in your area is completed.
  • This contract is suitable for parties that are CSPs (or represented by a CSP) and can adjust their consumption and/or delivery in the short term.
  • In this contract, you agree with your network operator to offer your flexible capacity when the operator expects short-term congestion on the grid. For this, you receive financial compensation as agreed with your network operator.
  • When a congestion situation is anticipated, the network operator will ask you, via GOPACS, to submit a bid based on the terms of your contract.
  • GOPACS evaluates all bids and selects the most efficient and cost-effective one. The party behind the selected bid will then receive an order via GOPACS to deploy the offered balancing capacity during the requested time block. The market party is responsible for temporarily adjusting their capacity through their installation. If the network operator accepts your bid, you will receive a fee per request along with a fixed availability fee. It will also be verified whether the request has been followed and completed.

For more information or to sign a bid obligation contract, contact your network operator. This contract is directly established between you and your network operator and is executed via GOPACS.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Mandatory Bidding Contract

Do you have additional questions? Contact us, check out our comprehensive guide, or visit the FAQ page.

What is congestion?

Congestion is the situation where the demand for transmission of electricity exceeds the available transmission capacity. So there is a shortage of transmission capacity on the power grid.

If this is structural, the grid operator will increase the capacity of the electricity grid or expand the grid. However, this is a multi-year process. In the meantime, by shifting locations where electricity is used and delivered, the grid operator is trying to reduce demand for transmission.

This is done with the help from the market such as wholesale customers, aggregators and energy suppliers.

They can help if they can shift their consumption or generation of electricity to another time. Energy can also be temporarily stored. This creates the desired flexibility and can prevent or reduce peaks in the power grid.

Op het moment dat een netbeheerder een tekort aan transportcapaciteit (congestie) in het net verwacht, vragen wij aan de markt om te helpen dit op te lossen door hun energieverbruik wat te sturen, de flexbieding.

This steering creates flexibility. For example, a cold store can turn off its freezer cells for two hours at the time of peak demand without affecting the temperature. This makes additional capacity available for another customer.

For more information on congestion, see the ‘About congestion management’ page.

What is congestion management?

Congestion management is the set of measures deployed by network operators to mitigate the effects of congestion and prevent the network from becoming overloaded. Whereas congestion indicates the problem of capacity shortage, congestion management focuses on the practical solutions to deal with these bottlenecks. Congestion management is crucial for a stable, affordable and sustainable energy supply in the Netherlands. It will become increasingly important as power demand and the share of renewables continue to grow. Read more about congestion management here.

What are flex bids?

If the supply of or demand for electricity is greater than the electricity grid in a given region can handle, the grid operator calls on the market to use or generate more or less electricity. The market includes parties such as energy suppliers and aggregators and wholesale customers.

These companies then indicate the price at which they wish to do so, called flex bid (also called congestion bid). If the flex bid is taken, the market participant receives a fee for it.

Why are flex bids necessary?

The amount of electricity transmitted through the grid varies from moment to moment. The more capacity used, the sooner a spike in usage can cause the power grid to overload. By shifting times when electricity is used or fed back, grid operators can better match supply and demand to avoid overloading the electricity grid.

To avoid those peaks on the grid, grid operators ask the market to temporarily defer or reduce their electricity consumption (or generation) for a market-based fee. We call this a flex bid.

What are the benefits of participating?

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.

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