Redispatch is a measure used by grid operators to prevent overload on the electricity grid. It involves adjusting production and consumption intraday, within the same day.
Imagine a grid operator sees that too much power is being fed into a certain area by solar or wind. This could overload the local grid. Through GOPACS, the operator then issues buy-orders: parties in that area are asked to reduce generation or increase consumption.
At the same time, the national grid must remain balanced. That’s why the operator looks for a counter-order (sell-order) outside the congested area. That party will increase generation or reduce consumption. This creates equilibrium: locally the bottleneck is solved, and nationally the grid remains stable.
The matching of these bids is done automatically via GOPACS. Market participants that provide their flexibility receive financial compensation, based on their bid.
Companies earn revenue whenever their flexibility is actually used. You decide your own price by submitting a bid. GOPACS compares all offers and selects the most cost-efficient solution. This way you get paid for making your flexible capacity available.
Redispatch is attractive for companies that can adjust their consumption or generation at short notice. For example, a cold storage facility can lower temperatures in advance and then reduce consumption for a few hours. On the production side, wind and solar farms or growers with CHP units can adjust their output relatively easily. Flexibility thus generates benefits not only for the company itself but also for the grid.
Redispatch can be an attractive way to deploy flexible capacity. Whether it fits your business depends on financial considerations and how well you can steer your production. Below we list the key benefits and points of attention.
Let GOPACS guide you through the registration process and the required steps.
Choose a Congestion Service Provider to handle bidding, control, and settlement.
Ensure reliable (near) real-time measurement and control, for example via an EMS or telemetry.
Place a buy/sell bid through a connected trading platform, including volume, price, and time window.
When activated, follow the instruction (increase/decrease consumption or injection) and log the delivered flexibility.
After verification of the delivered MWh, payment is made according to your bid via the market or CSP settlement.
Join redispatch and earn by using your flexibility smartly. Benefit from attractive compensations while contributing to a reliable electricity supply.
A flock of protected birds passes through an area with wind turbines. A local wind producer must shut down part of the turbines and therefore generates less power than expected. To meet demand, electricity has to come from outside the area. The grid operator expects this will cause problems at one of the substations – overload is imminent.
The grid operator issues a GOPACS market message asking for Sell-orders: producers should temporarily generate more and/or consumers should use less. A local cold storage facility responds to this request and delays cooling. The electricity they save (by consuming less than contracted) is offered as a Sell-order.
A grower outside the congestion area decides to generate less power with his CHP unit. This saves on gas costs, but he now lacks electricity for lighting. He buys this power (at a favorable price) with a Buy-order.
Both the cold storage facility and the grower receive a favorable price for their electricity. GOPACS matches buy and sell orders by finding prices as close as possible to each other. The difference between the buy and sell price is called the spread. This spread is covered by the grid operator.
On the electricity grid, balance refers to the continuous equilibrium between total electricity generation and total consumption. This balance is essential for the stability and reliability of the grid. Without it, there can be too much or too little electricity locally, which affects voltage and frequency. Fluctuations in these values can cause wear or even damage to electrical equipment and installations.
A buy order is a bid placed by a market participant on a connected trading platform, with the intent to purchase electricity. Buy orders are part of the redispatch process, in which market participants are invited through a market message to submit buy and sell orders to help resolve intraday congestion situations.
A counterbid is part of the redispatch process on the congestion market. A bid and a counterbid together resolve a congestion situation while maintaining balance on the electricity grid.
In the context of redispatch, effectivity refers to the extent to which a flexibility bid within a congestion area contributes to resolving local congestion. Since electricity flows freely across the grid, not every change in consumption or production has the same impact on a specific bottleneck. A solution located physically close to the congested part of the grid will generally have a greater effect than one further away.
Within GOPACS, the effect of a specific bid on the power flow and direction across a congested net element is calculated. A bid with high effectivity – with a value close to or equal to 1 – significantly reduces congestion, while a bid with an effectivity of 0 has no effect. Effectivity is determined in advance by the grid operator using network calculations and is recorded in an effectivity matrix.
On the congestion market, energy trading platforms are digital marketplaces where market participants can trade flexible capacity via redispatch to help resolve grid congestion. These platforms facilitate electricity trading and allow participants to place bids to either increase or decrease their electricity production or consumption, depending on the needs of the electricity grid. This enables them to manage risks or take advantage of market opportunities.
With a market announcement, CSPs are invited to submit a redispatch flexibility bid on one of the connected trading platforms. These bids are submitted in the form of buy and sell orders, both inside and outside the congestion area.
The spread is the difference between the price of a buy order and a sell order that are used via redispatch to help reduce grid congestion. When a grid operator anticipates a congestion issue, they send a market message asking for flexible bids on a connected trading platform. Market participants set their own buy or sell prices.
Flexibility is delivered at fixed, pre-agreed moments. This provides certainty and yields a fixed availability fee.
With every market request you are obliged to place a flex-bid. The income depends on market prices.
You offer flexibility whenever it suits you. Successful bids generate a fee per activated megawatt hour.
