Alleviating grid stresses with virtual power plants, with Michael Lynch (Enel X)

Want the latest news, analysis, and price indices from power markets around the globe - delivered to your inbox, every week?Sign up for the Weekly Dispatch - Modo Energy’s unmissable newsletter.Electricity grids worldwide need both the flexibility to adapt to renewable energy sources, and the resilience to cope with grid-stress events. Demand curtailment and other forms of demand-side response (DSR) play an increasingly fundamental role in supporting both these requirements, yet direct participation in these programmes can be complex, and is typically geared towards high-demand customers with single, centralised sites.However smaller, decentralised organisations can still unlock the benefits of DSR and provide a crucial grid service by working with an aggregator. By bringing multiple demand customers and sites together in a virtual power plant (VPP), aggregators help businesses of all sizes become major contributors to grid stability, without the challenges of managing individual enrolment themselves.In this episode, Michael Lynch, manager of Enel X’s global Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Dublin, joins Ed Porter to discuss the growing role of VPPs in helping stabilise global electricity grids. In conversation they discuss:

• The nature of VPPs, and the type of generation, storage and load-curtailment resources they aggregate.
• How VPPs respond to the requirements of grid and asset operators.
• The use of flexibility and automation in managing VPP performance.
• The need for resilience in the NOC to ensure a reliable and rapid response in volatile conditions – from shutdowns and outages, to extreme weather and earthquakes.
• The human dimension and skills set required to balance around 10 GW of flexibility services worldwide.
• The future of VPPs as they adopt more battery storage assets in EVs, homes and businesses.

About our guestMichael joined Enel X Global Retail in 2020 from an airline operations control centre, where hegained hands-on experience planning, scheduling and managing disruptions in a fast-paced,high-pressure environment.Enel X Global Retail is the Group’s business line dedicated to customers around the world withthe aim of effectively providing products and services based on their energy needs andencouraging them towards a more conscious and sustainable use of energy. Globally, itprovides electricity and integrated energy services with approximately 55 million customersworldwide, offering flexibility services aggregating 10 GW, managing around three millionlighting points, and with 30,100 owned public charging points for electric mobility.For more information on what Enel X Global Retail does, head to its website at https://www.enelx.com/uk/en/About Modo EnergyModo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage solutions understand the market - and make the most out of their assets.All of our podcasts are available to watch or listen to on the Modo Energy site. To keep up with all of our latest updates, research, analysis, videos, podcasts, data visualizations, live events, and more, follow us on LinkedIn. Check out The Energy Academy, our bite-sized video series breaking down how power markets work.