Opinion Exchange

Flexibility is the defining principle of tomorrow’s electricity market: Helen Steiniger analyses the transition from inflexible concepts of the past to the dynamic electricity markets of the future.

More renewable energy means less grid stability – this concern is often repeated by critics of renewable energy. But how is the stability of the grid actually measured?

A successful energy transition is dependent on integrating decentralized energy systems. To clarify important questions regarding decentralization – including the upsides and challenges for energy systems – we spoke with Next Kraftwerke’s in-house power trader, Amani Joas. 

In our future energy systems we will pretty often see times where, let’s say, a sudden storm front brings heaps of cheap and green and beautiful but, alas, in that particular time unneeded wind power into the system. And we will see times where the opposite happens: a sudden shortage of wind and solar power. What can we do about it?

Winter storm Axel, which set the current wind energy record in Germany, was also the source of a large wind power excess in Germany – and a considerable amount of hydrogen gas for the municipal utility company in the town of Hassfurt. There, the power-to-gas (PtG) installation, owned jointly by the city utility and Greenpeace Energy, stored the excess and particularly cheap wind energy in a matter of seconds as hydrogen wind gas.