The Virtual Power Plant A Success Story from Europe

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Melanie Shelton
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1 The Virtual Power Plant A Success Story from Europe Alexander Ebert Organised by

2 Contents Portrait of STEAG Saar Energie Situation at Project Start Virtual Power Plant Project Scope and Implementation Lessons learned Conclusion

3 Portrait of Saarenergie (1) STEAG Saar Energie is a utility in the mining region of Saarland, Germany with the traditional background of firing local coal to produce power for the heavy industry also covering the full process of network operation, district heating and Methane gas distribution. Economic challenges of the past years (closing of mines, deregulation) led to the introduction of the socalled "virtual power plant" consisting both of own generation units and the ones of contracting partners, thus forming a pool which is an important player on the German energy market. STEAG Saar Energie AG was founded on October, 1st 2004 from the coalescence of SFW, Saar Energie GmbH and RAG Saarberg AG.

4 Portrait of Saarenergie (2) RAG Saarberg was established in September 1998 as an evolution of Saarberg Beteiligungen AG, which consolidated the non-mining activities of the former Saarbergwerke AG. These were complemented by the environment and mineral oil activities of the RAG Group, to which the new RAG Saarberg AG has belonged since autumn the coal mines and coking plants of the former Saarbergwerke AG were merged with Ruhrkohle Bergbau AG to form Deutsche Steinkohle AG (DSK), which - like today's STEAG Saar Energie - is a member of the RAG Group. STEAG Saar Energie operates thermal power plants in the Saarland with a total installed output of approx. 2GW of electrical power and 630MW of district heating. As operator and contracting partner, STEAG Saar Energie provides industry as well as municipalities with future-pointing solutions for a profitable and sustained energy supply.

5 Plants and Control Centre

6 Situation at Project Start AEG AEG Repas Repas SCADA SCADA proprietary protocol SAT SAT mini mini SCADA SCADA IEC /104 RTUs RTUs (old) (old) RTUs RTUs RTUs RTUs (new) (new) RTUs RTUs (new) (new) sub-transmission/ distribution 11kV...110kV plants and interchanges contracting partners

7 Virtual Power Plant

8 Requirements (1) The load change of the supplier plants must exhibit a sufficient load change speed to be able to reliably effect the load change in a minimum demand period of 7.5 minutes. The supplier plant should have a guaranteed technical availability of 100% during the supply period. In the event of demand, a minimum operating time of 4 hours with guaranteed load change must be possible. To enable deployment management, the plant must either be callable via a permanently staffed control room or alternatively fitted with a remote control system so that it can be directly accessed by Saar Energie.

9 Requirements (2) No restriction on the demand frequency during the supply period. During the call, a pulse value of the load change must be transmitted to Saar Energie. The load change must be recorded using a measuring system that records 15-minute power values and transmitted to Saar Energie by midday the following day. It is possible for Saar Energie to transmit data via remote meter reading.

10 Services (1) Prequalification of supplier plants with the transmission network operators as a precondition for marketing Daily planning and organization of the pool to optimize marketing in the individual regions Time series analytical price evaluation to guarantee high bidding probabilities in the daily calls for tenders Back-up of the pool through own plants so that the required plant availability can be reliably guaranteed as a prequalification precondition Marketing of the pool(s) in all control zones to guarantee high bidding probabilities Assurance of guaranteed fixed monthly rates for the provision of resources

11 Services (2) Passing market price development on to the customer through monthly price adjustments with assumption of the price movement risk in the current month Realization of deployment management in the pool in the event of a call for the supply of control energy via own permanently staffed energy control centre. Definition and installation of the technical equipment in the supplier plants for deployment management Handling of energy transfer logistics and realization of accountability management vis-à-vis the transmission system operators Pool billing vis-à-vis the transmission system operators and the individual suppliers Installation of the measurement and transmission technology for pulse transmission of the load change in the call period

12 Scope and Implementation In order to achieve the business goals a project is carried out together with Siemens to cover the following scope: Replacement of existing SCADA systems by just one under full operation Interfaces to control systems of power plants and other utilities Process communication via IEC and 104 including VPN solutions, data concentrators for protocol conversion, dial-up connections etc. Integrated energy management applications for mid and short term demand forecasting, plant and contract optimization, energy trading, plant control, online load management and support of revenue collection on top of SCADA with link to existing office environment

13 Process Communication TSOs ICCP Siemens Siemens Spectrum Control Control Front Front End End IEC 104 Concentrator IEC 104 VPN IEC 101/104 proprietary protocol IEC 101 dial up RTUs RTUs (new) (new) RTUs RTUs (new) (new) RTUs RTUs RTUs RTUs (new) (new) contracting partners sub-transmission/ distribution 11kV...110kV contracting partners

14 System Overview FWU/VPN Switch 1 FWU / VPN LAN SAARDATA FWU/VPN Anbindung FWU s IEC CFE 1 CFE 3 CFE 5 UI 3 UI 7 HP-Laser Drucker RO STANDALONE Spectrum PowerCC LAN 1 PowerCC Switch 1 PSOS / AAS 1 RTS 1 Kabel 2 x SCSI HBM UI 1 UI 5 UI 9 GPS HOPF STLF und UC S30 Disk Array Heartbeat LAN 2 x SCSI Kabel PSOS / AAS 2 RTS2 EBM UI 2 UI 6 UI 10 HP-Farb Laser A3 ISDN Router PowerCC Switch 2 Spectrum PowerCC LAN 2 SAARDATA BÜRO Anbindung CFE 2 CFE 4 CFE 6 UI 4 UI 8 HP-Laser Drucker ISDN Router FWU/VPN Switch 2 FWU / VPN LAN

15 Lessons learned Focus on involvement of all stakeholders from the start (incl. training). Go for standards, avoid specials (mainly for protocols). Data validation and RTU tests in house prior to commissioning is a must. Face complexity of combined redundancy consisting of (partly VPN) process links, data concentrator and front end Implementation in well defined sub projects necessary, especially for system transition in operational conditions Office integration and workflow support

16 Conclusion (1) STEAG Saar Energie has managed the transition from a traditional utility in a traditional industrial environment to a dynamic player in the German energy market. Currently 500MW are pooled within the virtual power plant. Proprietary hardware and software with no more spare parts and maintenance available combined with new business needs made it impossible to keep the existing process automation and control environment.

17 Conclusion (2) Following a careful requirement and design analysis Siemens has provided a solution based on a common platform for all commodities thus allowing an overall optimization for increased profit and a significant reduction of the TCO (spare parts, maintenance, training, workflow support). The chosen approach is more an ongoing win-win partnership than a single project client driven vendor relation!

Interoperability made by IEC TC 57. Dr. Andreas Huber 9th EPCC Siemens AG 2006

Interoperability made by IEC TC 57 Dr. Andreas Huber 9th EPCC 11.06.2007 International standards for interoperability The key for the utility and the vendor Integrated utility business operation F&C Marketing