Fortum has launched a pilot project in which a pioneering virtual power plant based on demand flexibility will be built together with customers. Fortum will build an over 100-kilowatt virtual power plant from an aggregated network of roughly 70 water heaters located in single family homes. The capacity of this power plant will be offered to the Finnish national grid company Fingrid to maintain a continuous power balance in the electricity system.
It is Finland’s first – and probably Europe’s first – project in which households are together participating to maintain the power balance, and in which the capacity is offered to the national grid company. Similar projects have previously been done with industry’s electricity loads.

“Our virtual power plant pilot based on water heaters doesn’t produce electricity, but it momentarily stops using a certain amount of electricity. This capacity can be used to balance the electricity system in the same way as the output produced by a power plant. For the purpose of balancing, it doesn`t matter if more electricity is produced or if less is consumed,” Janne Happonen, Development Manager at Fortum, explains the basic idea of the pilot project.

“The more intermittent wind and solar energy is included in our energy system, the bigger is the need for regulating power to balance the electricity network. That is why we need new kinds of control and storage solutions to balance electricity production and consumption. Digitalisation makes it possible for also households – especially those using electric heating – to have an important role in balancing the electricity network,” says Heli Antila, Chief Technology Officer at Fortum.

The pilot project started by Fortum is also a solid step towards the smart city model in which households and the energy solutions they use create a new player for the electricity markets. Operating together, households can reduce demand by controlling electric loads or generate supply by, for example, simultaneously discharging battery capacity. In both cases, from the electricity network perspective, it is regulating power, which on a large scale can balance the electricity network’s operations and reduce the need for fossil fuel-fired peak capacity plants.

In Fortum’s pilot, virtual power plant is based on remote control of the water heater. When more power is required in the system, Fortum momentarily takes over control of the water heater without any impact on the heating of the home or on the hot tap water. The customers participating in the pilot project will be provided with a mobile energy monitoring application that enables real-time monitoring of their household’s electricity consumption. Increased information on electricity consumption helps customers to pay more attention to their own consumption habits and often also reduces consumption.

Fortum Corporation
Corporate Communications

Further information:
Janne Happonen, Development Manager, Fortum, tel. +358 10 452 0850
Heli Antila, Chief Technology Officer, Fortum, tel. +358 40 571 7188

Read more about demand flexibility and its use in maintaining power balance:
http://www.fortum.com/en/corporation/research-and-development/virtual%20...
plant/pages/default.aspx

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