This winter, CheckWatt has expanded its efforts in local flexibility by participating in the marketplaces Effekthandel Väst and E.ON Switch, as well as through direct agreements with Kinnekulle Energi in Götene. In total, around 1,000 battery systems – installed both in private homes and in businesses – are helping several electricity grid owners across Sweden to avoid bottlenecks and enable a more cost-efficient expansion of the power grids.
A typical electricity grid needs to be dimensioned for the hours of the year with the highest load, which in Sweden usually occur when temperatures are at their lowest and heat pumps and electric heaters are running at full power. In a growing grid, this may amount to around 50–100 hours per year, and consumption during these “peak load hours” often determines when a new electricity-intensive industry or a new fast-charging station can be connected to the grid.
Through local flexibility markets, grid owners gain several important tools to use the grid more efficiently, which enables faster electrification than would otherwise be possible. These markets provide incentives for owners of batteries and other flexible resources – such as heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers – to shift electricity usage away from the most strained hours in the grid. This reduces aggregated peak loads, which in turn lowers the need for new grid investments, allows more customers to connect, and ultimately leads to lower grid fees for customers.
Deliveries on local flexibility markets typically take place during only a few hours, but these hours are often well compensated. Last year, when CheckWatt participated at scale in Effekthandel Väst – the local flexibility market operated by Göteborg Energi and Mölndal Energi – the batteries only needed to discharge for 10–20 hours. The additional compensation for participating in the local flexibility market amounted to around €65 for the season for a typical residential battery of 10 kWh. During all hours when there is no need for local flexibility, these batteries deliver ancillary services to the transmission system operator and perform services locally in the building, just as usual.
Forecasting compensation for this winter is difficult, as it depends on whether the winter is mild or not, as well as conditions and rules of each individual local flexibility market.
At present, almost 10% of CheckWatt’s Swedish customers live in an area with a local flexibility market. The major flexibility markets today are Effekthandel Väst in Gothenburg and Mölndal, and E.ON Switch. CheckWatt customers who deliver local flexibility on E.ON Switch live in one of the following areas: Hässleholm, northern Örebro, Kungsängen, Bromölla-Sölvesborg, Bålsta, Kallhäll, Älmhult-Osby, or southern Skåne – which includes the urban areas of Malmö, Lund, Lomma, Staffanstorp, Tomelilla, Trelleborg, and Vellinge. Customers participating in E.ON Switch are either connected directly to E.ON’s electricity grid or via other grid companies such as C4 Energi or Kraftringen, which in turn are connected to E.ON’s regional grid. However, living in these areas does not guarantee participation in local flexibility, as E.ON selects batteries located in areas affected by capacity challenges in the local grid.
CheckWatt is actively working to help more grid owners get started with local flexibility markets. Within a few years – driven by EU legislation and increasingly rapid electrification – we expect that virtually all electricity grid companies will need to purchase local flexibility in order to enable the most cost-efficient power grids possible.
