| Media release
Following the successful completion of the pilot project in Switzerland, Swissgrid is now founding the joint venture Equigy with the transmission system operators TenneT (Netherlands/Germany) and Terna (Italy). The platform accelerates the integration of decentralised, flexible energy sources in grid operations. Other transmission system operators have already expressed an interest in Equigy.
The blockchain-based crowd balancing platform Equigy intensifies cooperation at European level and creates standardisation for integrating small, decentralised units into the grid control process. This allows the platform to make a significant contribution to grid stabilisation and increase efficiency in the control energy market. The cooperation among the transmission system operators creates a large market for flexible resources and establishes conditions that allow the manufacturers of electric vehicles, batteries and other technologies, as well as operators and aggregators in turn, to prequalify for this market more easily. The approach is open to operators and aggregators and can therefore also be applied to traditional technologies. All members of the joint venture can benefit from knowledge transfer and cost sharing as development continues.
Appointment of the Equigy Board of Directors and Executive Board
Equigy was founded in April as a consortium between TenneT, Terna and Swissgrid. The newly established joint venture has now appointed Equigy’s Board of Directors and Executive Board. Rainer Mühlberger (chairman, Swissgrid), Melanie Bunke (TenneT) and Luca Marchisio (Terna) were elected to the Equigy Board of Directors. René Kerkmeester, Ersilia Aloia and Martin van ’t Verlaat were nominated to take their places on the Executive Board as CEO, CFO and CTO respectively.
Successful Swiss pilot project
This year, Swissgrid launched a pilot project in Switzerland for using battery storage technologies in the area of primary control energy. The project aimed to balance short-term fluctuations in the transmission grid with the support of small, decentralised energy sources. The Swiss pilot project, which was completed in August, was successfully implemented by Swissgrid in association with Alpiq, one of Switzerland’s leading energy service providers. Alpiq offers aggregated flexibility on the control energy market and supplies primary control energy. A 1.2 MW battery was used as a flexible energy source in the project. Swissgrid will operationalise the pilot project next year. This represents the world’s first application of blockchain technology in the field of primary control energy in electricity systems.
Operationalisation in 2021
Swissgrid is planning further studies and pilot projects with various partners to apply Equigy in the area of ancillary services. The operationalisation of the crowd balancing platform at Swissgrid will start in 2021. As part of this process, Swissgrid is also examining possibilities for new business models with the partners involved.