Helen and Voltalis are Fingrid’s partners in aggregation pilot projects in the balancing energy markets

In early 2017, Fingrid was looking for partners to aggregation pilot project in the balancing energy markets. Helen Oy and Voltalis S.A were chosen as pilot partners.

The aim of aggregation is to combine small demand side and generation resources, and thus benefit from participating in power system balancing. While the share of intermittent new renewables increases in future, it is important to be able to utilize all flexibility potential.

The target of the pilot is to get practical experiences of leaving aggregated bids, registering the sales and handling the imbalances and information exchange between parties, among others.

We received eight applications for the pilot and decided to have two pilots. The selection of pilot partners was based on the possibility to implement the pilot within the given timeframe and the novelty value.

Helen is a Finnish retailer and electricity producer. In the pilot, Helen will be using reserve power, i.e. diesel engines, from properties.

Voltalis has been acting as aggregator in France since 2008 and operates today some 100 000 French households and smaller commercial sites. In the pilot, Voltalis will concentrate on aggregation of resources from the demand-side in Finland, including from households.

One-year pilots are planned to start in late 2017. We will inform more about pilots later. Based on pilot experiences, Fingrid evaluates whether to implement independent aggregator model in balancing and reserve market in general.

Additional information:
Specialist Laura Ihamäki, tel. + 358 30 395 5166