KVAL: Software for real-time production planning and bidding for renewable energy producers

The project has developed a prototype for software that performs real-time bidding for producers of renewable energy. For traditional production technologies, like fossil fuel based production and hydropower, operators can decide when and how much to produce. In contrast, variable renewable production, like solar and wind, cannot control time and quantity of production. Most trades on European power exchanges concerns energy with delivery the next day. This is challenging for renewable producers because they face uncertain production when making these bids. As a result, the last decade has experienced an increase in real-time energy trading through the intraday electricity market where producers can readjust their positions close to delivery. However, these bids are more complicated than the day-ahead bids because producers must consider additional factors, like fluctuating prices and trading decisions of counterparties. The project has suceeded in implementing state-of-the-art research to represent the market and uncertainty to train algorithms that learn profitable strategies for intraday electricity markets. Producers provide up to date information about the market and receive strategies to guide their decisions. The project has managed to demonstrate how hydropower producers can monetize on their flexibility by exploiting price differences in intraday markets. The project has achieved a TRL 4 togehter with hydropower producers and demonstrated how they can utilize their flexibility and price variations for increased profitability in the intraday market. Based on a market analysis, it has been defined an entry-level market, and the business case is strengthened by laying out a further plan for development and financing together with pilot customers, also described in an Verification Application to the Norwegian Research Council.

Outcome: If successful, the milestone project will verify that the NTNU technology outperforms today?s available systems, not only in university simulations, but in real time on real customer data, and is key to gain market acceptance. Verifying the technology with a pilot customer does not only serve to demonstrate our high performance to the target market, but also gives us a chance to learn about our customers, what their key needs and wants are, and how they perceive the problem. Impact: Our project uses the mechanisms of the free market to promote a sustainable power system, directly impacting UN sustainability goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. Investments in wind and solar are now competitive alternatives to fossil fuels, and proper and profitable management of renewable energy production capacity is therefore crucial to promote new investment in green technology, reduce energy waste and discourage energy balancing actions from flexible fossil fuel production.