Flexibility services, how to do the laundry when the network needs it (paid)

Local flexibility services arrive in cities. What are they? Modulations of the power exchanged with the electricity grid by a person connected to it. Those who have a solar system on their roof, perhaps with storage, an electric car recharging system, a heat pump, but also their own simple household appliances - coordinating their operation, starting with the time at which they program the washing machine - can contribute to increasing or decreasing the power fed into the grid and increasing or decreasing the power absorbed.

Why is this important? Because more and more energy production from renewable, and therefore non-programmable, sources, especially solar, is penetrating the electricity system. This means that there will be plenty of supply during the day, i.e. when it is sunny and all the connected panels are working. And since the grid has to be in balance, matching the amount of energy offered with the amount of energy demanded, it is important to concentrate demand at times when there is most production. Otherwise, the grid operator is forced to switch off some plants to avoid the imbalance. Work is being done to avoid this with battery storage systems, which can absorb energy at times of overproduction and then release it when required. But the first wave of plants - remunerated through Terna's Macse auction held last year - will not be ready until 2028.

There is also a price issue: if there is a lot of supply and little demand, the value of production collapses. Even to zero, as happened last 1 May in the - not surprisingly - central hours of the day, due to the overproduction of photovoltaic plants that, with factories and offices closed for the holiday, found themselves generating electricity beyond their needs. A phenomenon that began to manifest itself in Italy last year in spring, before the summer heat pushed up demand for energy with the use of air conditioners. A relief for the bill but a problem for those operators who did not get paid for the day's production.

Flexibility services fit into this context. And they are possible through a digitised network: users connected to medium and low voltage can adjust their energy consumption or production to cope with peaks in demand on the electricity grid and keep it constantly balanced and secure. They become BSPs (balance service providers) and, for this service, they are paid an economic countervalue, after being selected through auctions.

How does this work in practice? Participants must use the Pgui (power grid user interface) device, which is installed at the exchange point that interconnects the specific user with the distribution network. The device communicates with a smart meter and certifies energy exchanges (via blockchain technology). Not only that: it receives requests from the energy distributor, or the aggregator managing a group of users, to change their consumption profile, within availability windows.