For the first time, Spain had to introduce the new system to reduce emissions. light consumptionz urgently, one year after commissioning. It was a month ago on the night of September 4th. Spanish Electricity Network The administrator of the Spanish electricity system has ordered the mandatory closure of many industrial plants to reduce national electricity consumption and prevent a significant imbalance due to the lack of sufficient electricity production to meet all demand with guarantees.
Red Eléctrica (REE) issued an order for factories to stop consuming electricity at 21.59 on Monday to prevent a problem caused by a power outage. Unplanned closure of the Ascó nuclear power plant, Due to an internal failure and coinciding with an incident in Tarragona Lower contribution from wind power generation There was also an increase in electricity exports, which was higher than expected and as confirmed by various official sources.
Fear of non-compliance has caused many factories to cease operations. +The new active demand response system, which was approved by the Government a year ago within the scope of the Energy Security Plan and serves to quickly reduce high electricity consumption (especially large industry) in order to prevent serious deviations in energy consumption, was implemented for the first time. operation of the electrical system.
Red Eléctrica, despite the emergency system being activated, There was no risk of fainting that night. “Continuity of supply was never compromised; the purpose of the activation order was to guarantee the reserve levels established in the operating procedures in response to a specific situation in which available resources in the system were reduced,” the sources said. from the electrical system administrator.
94 million per year plus extras
In October last year, REE held an auction to find large electricity consumers, marketers and electricity market agents willing to stop electricity consumption if necessary for a certain fee. As a result of this tender, the peninsula electricity system 497 megawatts (MW) of power ready to reduce consumption At certain times to guarantee the balance between production and demand. According to official REE records, on the night of September 4, all available 497 MW of power was ordered to be shut down, reducing electricity consumption by 1,424.7 megawatt hours (MWh).
Factories awarded the active demand response system tender will receive a fixed fee of 69.97 Euros for each assigned MW and hour, taking into account that they must be ready to stand down and provide emergency service for a total of 2,714 hours per year. (31%) focused on all hours of the year, workdays, and different periods of the day that vary according to different months).
The total fee that companies will receive for a year is 94.3 million euros On a fixed basis, with timely payments added each time they have to stop operating, depending on the duration of the outage and the current electricity market price. Due to the forced stop a month ago, Extra 189,756 euros given to affected factories (at the rate of 133.19 euros for each of the 1,424.7 MWh not consumed that night).
“The implementation of active demand response service is normal. “Flexibility and demand management tools, as well as new businesses emerging around them, will become increasingly important in an increasingly digital and smart electricity system,” explains the Ministry of Ecological Transition. The current auction expires on October 31 and REE should make another bid in the coming weeks We are looking for new contractors for the next twelve months.
Replace old ‘intermittency’
The active demand response system is designed to be applied only at certain times to ensure continuity of supply in cases of energy shortages for certain electricity market regulation services (such as replacement reserve or tertiary regulation). Factory closures can last up to three hours per day for each company receiving the service, and companies must be given at least 15 minutes’ notice.
Current active demand response service came in the form of:replace old deduction schedule The new system, which has been in force in Spain for more than a decade from 2008 to 2019, aims to prevent imbalances between production and demand in Spain as a whole by integrating the system’s own adjustment services; Local security situations due to lack of supply or large increases in the price of electricity. Only fifteen companies participate in the current service; The old system paid more than a hundred large factories.
The new system cost just over $94 million in its first year and was used once. Uninterrupted service had a total cost of 5 million 258 million lira in electricity bills around 200 million euros during the twelve years of its operation (in 2019 this amount was around 200 million euros, but in previous years it permanently exceeded 500 million euros per year, and even in 2014 it was close to 660 million euros).
Between 2008 and 2017, that is, for a full ten years, Red Eléctrica almost did not use the blackout system, during which it only ordered mandatory shutdowns of factories for five hours (although factories had to participate in forced shutdowns to check whether the system was working well). , at a rate of approximately 88 hours per year). During the last two years of its existence, a legal reform promoted by the Government of Mariano Rajoy made it easier to activate the system for economic reasons in order to prevent strong increases in the electricity market due to imbalances between supply and demand. In 2018, the interruption was activated 50 times, and in 2019, it was activated only 3 times.