Spain started operating during this period energy crisis A new system that reduces emergency light consumption in case of urgent need and replaces the previous interruption service. The mechanism allows pforced farming industrial factories to reduce electricity consumption if necessary and to prevent mismatches between electricity production and demand, which must always be met throughout the country. Electrical Network It is now looking for more industrial plants or energy companies willing to temporarily shut down operations in 2024 during emergencies for a fee of one million dollars.
Spanish Electricity Network The manager of the Spanish electricity system is concluding the auction, which will start on November 30 and end on December 4, with factories submitting their bids. Winning companies will bid a certain amount in the auction. electrical power that they can stop using for a few hours is the price at which they are willing to stop working.
The active demand response service has been in effect for a year, but the mechanism that was activated in the previous tender at the end of 2022 expired on October 31 and will not be active again until January 1, 2024. So the Spanish electrical system, work for two months without this protective formula to avoid interruptions. “There are other balancing mechanisms that are fully functional in the operation of the system,” REE sources say about the two-month uncertainty during which this protection system will not be active.
The conditions set for the next tender call for an active demand response requirement for up to 1,812 megawatts (MW) of power, compared to the maximum of 1,352 megawatts (MW) envisaged in last year’s tender (although ultimately only less than half of this intermittent power was tendered). ). Last year, factories had to stop only once. However, REE predicts that: Approximately 69 activation orders will be produced throughout 2024 of the special service (this is Shut down factories for a total of 207 hours(as the stops are for three-hour periods).
One stop in a year: 94 million
Red Eléctrica organized the previous auction in October 2022 with the aim of finding 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 It plans to reduce its consumption for a year at 497 MW At certain times to guarantee the balance between production and demand.
Factories bidding in the auction of the active demand response system received a fixed fee of 69.97 euros for each assigned MW and hour, taking into account that they had to stand by for a total of 2,714 hours per year and be ready to provide emergency service. (31% of all hours of the year are concentrated in different time periods of the day, which vary according to workdays and different months).
Total fee The number of companies acquired reached 94.3 million Euros for a year for a fixed amount to which certain payments will be added each time they have to stop working, depending on the duration of the outage and the price of the electricity market at the time. Last year the protection system was activated only once. The shutdown occurred on the night of September 4, when the REE ordered the mandatory closure of several industrial plants in order 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 ordered factories to stop consuming electricity at 21.59 on Monday to prevent a problem arising from the unplanned shutdown of the Ascó nuclear power plant in Tarragona due to an internal fault, which coincided with a crisis. The contribution from the production of wind power plants is lower than expected, as well as the increase in electricity exports, as confirmed by various official sources.
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). For this forced shutdown, the affected factories received an extra €189,756 (€133.19 for each of the 1,424.7 MWh not consumed that night), which was added to the agreed fixed charge for the whole year.
That night in early September, fear of non-compliance 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) to prevent serious deviations in energy consumption, was put into operation for the first time. operation of the electrical system.
Red Eléctrica emphasizes that although the emergency system was activated, there was no risk of a power outage 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,” sources said. from the electrical system administrator.
Billion dollar cost of the outage
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.
Existing active demand response service replaces old one cut in effect Spain For more than a decade, from 2008 to 2019. The new system aims to prevent imbalances between production and demand in Spain as a whole by integrating into the system’s own adjustment services, while previous blackouts were a shield for local security situations due to both lack of supply and large increases in 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. The cost of the uninterruptible service, reflected in electricity bills over the twelve years of its operation, totaled €5,258 million (in 2019 this amount was approximately €200 million, but in previous years it had permanently exceeded €500 million per year). Even in 2014 it was close to 660 million euros.
Between 2008 and 2017, that is, for a full decade, 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 blackout was activated 50 times, and in 2019, it was activated only 3 times.