News and 
Press Releases by Next Kraftwerke Belgium

Virtual Power Plant (VPP) operator Next Kraftwerke and Jedlix, an electric vehicle (EV) aggregator and smart charging platform provider, have launched an international pilot project to deliver secondary control reserve (aFRR) through the batteries of electric cars. Tendered by Transmission System Operator (TSO) TenneT, Next Kraftwerke and Jedlix have been selected for the pilot project that will see TenneT assess the technical feasibility of aFRR delivered by new technologies.

Next Kraftwerke, one of Europe’s largest Virtual Power Plants, has teamed up with sustainable energy company Eneco Belgium and battery supplier Alfen to integrate a 2-megawatt battery to its Virtual Power Plant Next Pool. The battery provides frequency control reserve (FCR) to the Belgian grid.

Sustainable waste management company Vanheede, sustainable energy supplier Eoly, and Virtual Power Plant operator Next Kraftwerke have teamed up to optimize management of the Vanheede energy portfolio. With its large shares of green power generated from wind, solar, and biogas sources, Vanheede is effectively a net-producer of electricity from the green and sustainable sources included in its sustainable strategy. In optimizing this strategy, the challenge was to create a contract for Vanheede that provided price security while also creating additional revenue opportunities from trading the company’s flexible power generation on the short-term and reserve power markets. 

At E-world 2018 in Essen, Cologne-based Next Kraftwerke is introducing NEMOCS, a new service that allows users to operate their own virtual power plant. Utilities and grid operators can use NEMOCS to network decentralized energy market assets - such as producers, consumers, and storage units - to aggregate their capacity and flexibility. Each individual asset can be operated as part of the larger network using remote control technology.

Eoly is kicking things off with NEXTRA. The Belgian energy company is the first customer to put Next Kraftwerke‘s new trading platform, NEXTRA, to use. NEXTRA allows energy producers and consumers to trade on energy markets all over Europe - without the need for expensive licenses and the investment associated with establishing connections to exchanges. This gives new players access to the energy markets.

The Next Pool virtual power plant grew by 1.35 gigawatts (GW) to a total of four GW in 2017. That is an increase of 50 percent compared to the size of the portfolio at the end of 2016. The growth further cements Next Kraftwerke’s position as one of the largest virtual power plants in Europe. Around one GW was added in Germany alone, with an additional 350 megawatts (MW) coming from the company's seven international subsidiaries. Jochen Schwill, managing director and founder of Next Kraftwerke: “This development shows that we are well-positioned on the market. We’re going into 2018 with plenty of optimism.”

Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) can reliably provide secondary reserve (R2) to the Belgium grid. This is the result of a pilot project transmission system operator (TSO) Elia has conducted with its partners Next Kraftwerke, Actility and EDF Luminus. The pilot project’s object was to test whether alternative technologies such as Virtual Power Plants can reliably provide R2 to the grid. All three participants showed their capability of providing R2 in a qualitative way. Next Kraftwerke also performed best in following Elia’s signals and control their aggregated units accordingly (compliancy). Based on the results of the pilot project TSO Elia will open the R2 market and develop a new market design for R2. So far, only large central production units (so-called CIPU units) are allowed to provide R2 in Belgium.