Industry
Industrial Flexibility as a Key to Competitiveness and Sustainability
The industry faces enormous challenges: rising protectionism, CO₂ reduction, volatile energy prices, high grid fees, and ensuring security of supply. At the same time, competitiveness on a global scale remains crucial. As the market-leading flexibility provider, ESFORIN supports companies in overcoming these challenges!
Individual grid charges in Germany:
Flexibility as the Key to Cost Optimization Starting in 2026
Across Europe, there is a search for electricity flexibility solutions as renewable energy capacity expands, in order to facilitate integration. Germany places a very strong emphasis on renewables and must therefore Adapt market rules, to promote flexibility. The Federal Network Agency plans to realign individual grid fees effective January 1, 2026, in accordance with Section 19 of the StromNEV. In addition to the existing band load criterion, a flexibility component is to be introduced.
The Grid fee reduction This is independent of the physical path to the nearest power plant and is intended to reward dynamic consumption patterns that are guided by price trends in the day-ahead market. The aim is for companies to increase their electricity use during periods of high renewable energy feed-in—such as during a „hellbrise“—and to reduce consumption during periods of tight capacity, such as during a „dunkelflaute.“.
This market-oriented behavior not only leads to lower grid fees but also offers opportunities for flexibility in industrial consumption and generation, from which Price volatility of up to €185,000 per MW and per trading direction per year on the short-term electricity market. At the same time, through our algorithm-based flexibility marketing, we help our Customers make a significant contribution to reducing CO₂ emissions to perform.
Learn more now from our experts in flexibility marketing for the industrial sector!
End-to-End Platform Consolidates Energy Management
Industrial companies face constant pressure to operate flexibly and cost-effectively when it comes to energy procurement and management. Following the 2021–2022 gas crisis, securing supplies through new full-service supply contracts initially seemed like a stable solution. However, these rigid arrangements quickly reach their limits when companies take steps toward self-supply or flexibility trading.
Even the integration of a PPAs or a new rooftop PV system can entail considerable forecasting and automation requirements, which pose major challenges for some full-service providers. Furthermore, the questions remain:
How can industrial companies take advantage of the extreme prices on the intraday market?
How can an industrial company take full advantage of all stages of the short-term electricity trading value chain—from day-ahead to continuous intraday trading—if all of its flexibility is already allocated to balancing power?
Example: Marketing the flexibility of an electricity consumer
For example, an industrial customer regularly reports 6 MW of flexibility for its production facility in both trading directions for certain quarter-hour products in the intraday market. This was also the case on Day D for the 8:15–8:30 time slot. Our customized algorithms then traded the 6 MW on the electricity exchange’s intraday market starting at 4:00 p.m. on the previous day (Day D-1), within the plant-specific restrictions. During this period, over 30 trades of this type were executed for a single product up until gate closure. Ultimately, the customer did not need to adjust the plant’s output on that day. As a rule, actual physical delivery occurs only in 30 out of 1,000 transactions on average across our portfolio of all customers; instead, the customer was able to reduce their energy costs by approximately €225 during that quarter-hour solely through the executed trades. At the same time, this system made an active contribution to grid stability and indirect CO₂ savings.
E-Boiler Marketing for Industry: Electrify. Decarbonize. Leverage Flexibility.
Industrial companies use electric boilers to generate process heat efficiently and with low emissions. This makes electric boilers ideal as a summer system for taking advantage of low or even negative electricity prices. During the cold season, a gas-fired boiler or gas-fired power plant supplements the supply and ensures a stable heat supply even under high demand. This creates maximum flexibility between electricity and gas options to optimally balance costs, CO₂ emissions, and supply security. E-boilers lower the carbon footprint and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, making them a crucial step toward a sustainable and future-proof heat supply.
Using Battery Storage in Industry!
The expansion of battery storage systems is gaining momentum in Europe. Falling cell prices are making an increasing number of business cases viable. The spectrum ranges from residential storage systems designed to optimize the use of solar power for personal consumption to grid boosters operated by transmission system operators to improve the quality of supply.
There are also a number of use cases for industry, a selection of which is listed below: optimizing the use of renewable energy for on-site consumption at the customer’s facility; reducing peak load or optimizing grid fees toward an individualized grid fee structure; and improving the quality of supply, such as voltage regulation, the physical balancing of forecast errors in a concluded PPA („as-produced profile“), the use of unused grid connection capacity to manage a stand-alone battery storage system on the trading and balancing energy markets, and much more..
Some of these use cases can also be combined; however, this must be taken into account in the metering and measurement plan in consultation with the relevant grid operator, and „switching“ between marketing models has not yet been approved by regulators.
