Power to Gas
New market potential for PtG plants

Your Power to Gas system should have an output of at least 100 kW. With a lower output, marketing is usually not profitable for you and us.

Next Kraftwerke supplies you with electricity. You can easily obtain the electricity you need for your electrolyser via our electricity supply contracts. If you want, we can also supply the corresponding guarantees of origin.

Prices on the electricity exchange are subject to constant fluctuations. Benefit from this by purchasing electricity when it is particularly cheap. With the flexible electricity tariffs from Next Kraftwerke, you receive optimised schedules that take into account the optimal operation of your system. You can decide whether you prefer fully automatic control with our Next Box or whether you want to control your power-to-gas plant yourself on the basis of the optimised schedules. The flexible tariff does not result in additional costs, but only in opportunities to save costs.

Next Kraftwerke's control system evaluates data from the electricity markets, weather forecasts and live data from all plants networked in the pool. In addition, the flow of the local natural gas grid can also be taken into account when creating schedules.

You do not necessarily need a Next Box to benefit from a flexible electricity supply. You can also optimise the mode of operation independently, without additional infrastructure. Next Kraftwerke will provide you with schedules or exchange electricity prices, which you can use as a basis for optimising the production of your PtG plant. If, on the other hand, you want fully automatic control, you need to install our remote control unit Next Box. The Next Box is connected to your plant and organises the data exchange between your plant and our control system. The control system calculates an optimal schedule for your electrolyser from the various relevant data and controls it. In other words: if the prices on the electricity exchange are low, your PtG plant is started; if the prices rise, the electrolysis is stopped again.

Power-to-gas plants are flexible and responsive. This makes them perfect for providing balancing energy. PtG can provide negative balancing power. This takes effect when there is too much electricity in the grid. Then the feed-in must be reduced or the demand increased in order to stabilise the grid frequency within the limits. An additional benefit is that the gas generated in this way can also be kept. Furthermore, power-to-gas plants can additionally provide positive balancing energy during continuous operation by shedding load, i.e. reducing their electricity demand.

For the provision of balancing energy, your plant must prequalify, just like any other type of plant. We will be happy to support you in this process. In addition, at Next Kraftwerke we can include plants with an output of 100 kW or more in our pool. Are you unsure whether you meet all the technical requirements? Then contact us and our internal technical service will provide you with competent advice.

PtG plants are ideally suited for providing negative balancing power. In practical terms, this means reducing the amount of electricity in the grid by absorbing the surplus electricity. Another factor is how quickly your plant can provide control energy. A distinction is made between minute reserve (provision after 5 min), secondary reserve (provision within 5 min) and primary balancing power (provision within 30 seconds). Many PtG plants can provide all three types of balancing power. Even the lucrative primary control reserve. We will be happy to clarify whether your plant can also do this in a non-binding individual consultation. If you operate your system continuously, you can also provide positive balancing power. With positive control energy, consumption is reduced flexibly and at short notice.

If your plant is not available, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can take the new restrictions into account when controlling your plant. You can easily and simply use our customer portal "My Power Plant" for this purpose.

Your plant can provide control energy and benefit from flexible electricity tariffs at the same time. However, if you do not use the Next Box for the flexible electricity tariffs, you must ensure that sufficient storage capacity is available for a balancing energy call. If we control the system via the Next Box, we already take this into account in our schedules.