Green Flex – Mobilizing Operational Flexibility in Green Energy Production

Green Flex will develop and demonstrate a pilot version of a model-based tool, named FlexIQ, at Sønderborg Fjernvarme. FlexIQ will support overall optimization in daily operation by delivering future predictions on key performance measures, answering key questions:

• How much flexibility can we offer to the market, e.g. regulation power and intra-day, tomorrow?
• What is the span of possibilities if we take the flexibility of the district heat supply in to account?
• How and why does it change the fuel costs of the subsystem?
• How does it change the environmental impact?
• How does it affect maintenance costs in term of wear and service life consumption?
• Which failure conditions or performance reductions should be taken into account?

FlexIQ will have several types of subscribers pursuing optimal operation:

• Plant operators will have to monitor efficient, safe and reliable operation
• Load scheduling either done manually or supported by a software tool
• Control system to optimize set-points for sub-plants and sub- systems
• Planning and reporting personnel, etc.

The end product will have several value propositions for the end user: Optimized market bids, minimized operational costs and minimized maintenance costs. Altogether, pay-back time of the end product is expected to be less than 1 year for customers. The market potential is large within Danish CHP production and additional potential has been identified within international CHP and related industries. Furthermore, development of multi-product plants (power, district heat, biofuel, hydrogen, district cooling, etc.) will extend the potential.