Poland’s Tauron taps flexibility services for DER management

Map and flag of Poland. Image courtesy 123rf

Polish DSO Tauron Dystrybucja has signed the first agreement for the provision of flexibility services.

The flexibility services, says Tauron in a release, are mainly aimed at commercial customers who, without losses, can reduce energy consumption at specific times, eliminating excessive load on the network, or increase consumption should the network need. The same applies to producers.

Flexibility services are one of the ways of solving technical network problems that arise in connection with the growing number of distributed generation sources, as well as the increasingly frequent use of electricity for the development of electromobility or for heating.

Commented Maciej Mróz, vice president of the Management Board of TAURON Dystrybucja: “We are looking for technical solutions to the network challenges we face as a distribution system operator.

“We want to use the potential of flexibility on the part of customers connected to the distribution network, which will allow us to eliminate constraints in our network. Flexibility services are the answer to these difficulties, because they allow us to eliminate local network constraints until the planned investment is completed.”

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The first agreement

At the end of October, Tauron signed the first agreement for these services, specifically to eliminate the effects of technical limitations in the 15kV Łączany medium voltage line, supplied from the power station in Zator, Małopolska.

In this line, excessive voltage increased locally due to excessive generation compared to energy consumed by recipients.

The sources of electricity for the line are the Łączany Hydroelectric Power Plant, connected at the end of the line, and a significant and constantly growing number of photovoltaic installations.

Over the next few years, Tauron will attempt to resolve the technical limits of this line by also replacing the overheads with a cable line. Until then, the DSO will tap into flexibility, reducing the inductive reactive power introduced to the network.

According to Tauron, with their announcement many customers are already seeing the potential of flexibility and are expressing interest.

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