FCR (Frequency Containment Reserve)
Electricity use in Sweden is expected to increase sharply in the future. To keep the power grid frequency even, flexibility is required, not least from the production industry. Svenska Kraftnät has introduced a program for frequency regulation (FCR), which means that industrial companies sell flexibility linked to their electricity consumption. In order not to cause a loss of production, non-disruptive implementation is required the production apparatus, something that Optimation can help with.
Large industries plan to electrify their processes in the near future, and electricity use in Sweden is therefore predicted to increase. At the same time, the electricity system is being expanded with increasingly renewable production in the form of solar and wind power, which cannot handle disturbances in the electricity system as well as, for example, hydropower. To avoid an electricity shortage or a so-called brown out, Svenska Kraftnät has introduced a program for frequency regulation, which means that industries can sell their electricity consumption flexibility. At very short notice, businesses can offer to reduce electricity use in order to maintain the frequency in the grid.
– During the pandemic, there was a lot of talk about flattening the curve so as not to overload care. It’s the same concept here. There are consumption peaks in the morning and in the afternoon, which come from both human behavior and the production industry. Flattening them out in the long run leads to both less risk of electricity shortages and lower prices. It is conveyed a lot that ordinary people should think about their electricity consumption, to charge their electric car at night and so on. That’s good, but what’s missing in the debate is for the industry to pull its weight, because that’s where the real potential lies, says Peter Lingman, technology manager at Optimation.
To completely stop your electricity use at short notice means a process disruption that must be managed in order not to become costly, or partially stop the business. Optimation helps customers with the implementation of FCR with minimal impact on production.
– We have always worked to vary the production rate and FCR is just another variant of that. We ensure that the ramping down can be done in a process-safe way. We know the process, we know the requirements and we are a pretty good glue between the two worlds. explains Andreas Krafft, consultant at Optimation.
An optimal business to join the FCR market is a process industry with a medium consumption of electricity that can be switched off quickly. The use must also be possible to switch off in stages.
– Many companies probably think that they cannot join because they cannot cope with a production stoppage. Then you are welcome to contact us. We can help with the pre-qualification to investigate whether the program is suitable for their particular process industry, says Andreas Krafft.
Making adjustments to quickly change production rates can also open up other areas of use and economic benefits.
– Having better control of your electricity consumption allows you to adapt your driving to when the cost is the lowest. It can also be applied to other areas such as pumping water. But the main reason to join is about being part of the solution and not the problem. The industries of the future need to be dynamic in order to manage a future where electricity supply is a continuing challenge, concludes Peter Lingman.
How much you can earn from being an FCR supplier depends on your specific conditions and can vary greatly.
Here are three examples:
Example 1: A greenhouse has flexibility in its lighting and an electricity consumption of 1 GWh/year. The company can earn around SEK 20,000–40,000/year.
Example 2: A sawmill has flexibility in the drying process and an electricity consumption of 10 GWh/year. The company can earn approximately SEK 100,000–500,000/year.
Example 3: A data center for high-performance computing has flexibility in its servers and an electricity consumption of 100 GWh/year. The data center can earn around SEK 5,000,000–10,000,000/year.
Contact Optimation if you need help:
• to investigate the conditions for and consequences of speeding up changes in production rate
• to change the regulation and logic to speed up changes in production rate
• to introduce changes in regulation to be able to participate in FCR
Contact Andreas below and he can tell you more about what to do.
