Opinion Exchange

As a Virtual Power Plant, Next Kraftwerke aggregates electricity producers and storage units in order to trade their energy on various markets. A business model that is fundamentally based on digital technology and that offers many exciting projects for IT specialists. In this interview, we introduce you to the two software developers Lydia Lerche and Christian Heiden from the software engineering team, who talk about their work in frontend and backend development. 

For decades, the discourse around the energy transition was characterised by a simple "it can't be done". Those who - like us - formulated the goal of wanting to convert the entire energy landscape to renewable energies at conferences 10 years ago earned at best a weary smile. Today, the matter is no longer a question of "if", but only of "how" and above all "when". The technical possibilities are there - as is a social and industry-wide consensus on where the journey must go. For not only the advancing climate change, but also the energy crisis has shown us how problematic the dependence on fossil energy really is.

Regardless of the ever changing perspectives of the debate on the energy transition, i.e. whether the current talk of the town is about achieving full supply with 100% renewable energies as quickly as possible or about what to do when PV and wind don't generate enough electricity for a couple of days or even weeks, whether it is about the right path for shutting down conventional power generators or about ramping up renewable technologies: experience shows that sooner or later we always end up with the topic of flexibility options.

Due to the high electricity prices, windfall tax laws have been enacted in all EU member states that skim off surplus revenues from the sale of electricity. As a rule, only electricity producers are affected by this regulation (with the exception of Poland). The windfall tax laws stipulate that electricity producers may keep part of the market revenues generated as "legally permitted revenue". Any revenue more than this (surplus revenues) must be surrendered. Many member states have decided to deduct not 100 % but 90 % of the surplus revenues in order to leave plant operators an economic incentive.