The partnership
enspired has partnered up with VW Kraftwerk to capitalize on excess flexibility from the client’s power plant in an initiative to support the grid while improving P&L (profit & loss) results. The collaboration represents the first case of PCT (Professional Certified Trading) for EPEX SPOT, which allows companies to offer fully integrated trading-on-behalf services to clients within the EPEX SPOT ecosystem.
The customer
Headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, VW Kraftwerk is a Volkswagen subsidiary that focuses on energy generation and supply from its on-site power plant as well as energy services, decarbonization, and optimization of decentralized assets, such as BESS and heat pumps.
Produced electricity and heat are often used for VW’s own facilities and surrounding areas, while additional green energy is purchased by the trading team. The company is involved in energy management, ensuring efficient and sustainable power use within the Volkswagen Group, and provides flexibility for grid operators.
The use case
After becoming the first official PCT partner in late 2023, enspired has now successfully taken live the first such use case through this project with VW Kraftwerk. As part of it, enspired optimizes surplus flexibility from VW’s power plant based on current marginal prices and market movements. All trading volumes executed by enspired are automatically routed to the customer’s financial and physical accounts, whilst EPEX SPOT takes care of REMIT and beneficiary reporting.
Tim Vasterling, Product Manager Asset Portfolio & Energy Storage at VW Kraftwerk, comments: “The intraday continuous market offers profitable price signals for our CCGTs [combined cycle gas turbines], which are valuable for their high load-following rate and take into account additional technical parameters, such as a minimum runtime for a power increase. The integrated trading-on-behalf setup with enspired greatly helps us to benefit from these market opportunities in an efficient and compliant way.”
"The intraday continuous market offers profitable price signals for our CCGTs, which are valuable for their high load-following rate. The integrated trading-on-behalf setup with enspired greatly helps us to benefit from these market opportunities in an efficient and compliant way."
Tim Vasterling
Product Manager Asset Portfolio & Energy Storage at VW Kraftwerk
The environmental edge
As more and more renewables enter the electricity mix, fluctuations inevitably occur and must be compensated. VW Kraftwerk’s excess flexibility helps keep the grid balanced and stable, paving the way for the onward progression of the energy transition.
“It was an exciting process to launch the first PCT use case together with VW Kraftwerk," says Onofrio Belviso, who is in charge of the project at enspired. "We are delighted to support the grid with this project, to develop it further, and to open discussions on opportunities in e-mobility and battery aggregation.”
“It was an exciting process to launch the first PCT use case together with VW Kraftwerk. We are delighted to support the grid with this project, to develop it further, and to open discussions on opportunities in e-mobility and battery aggregation.”
Onofrio Belviso
Senior Sales Expert at enspired