About Congestion and Flex

The energy transition requires more and more capacity from the power grid. On the one hand, more and more electricity is being generated locally. On the other hand, companies are need more electricity for their day to day business. In sparsely populated areas such as Friesland and the Achterhoek, many electricity requests are being made for solar parks and wind parks, but also in other parts of the country it is becoming increasingly challenging for grid operators to transport all the power in the grid. A shortage of transmission capacity is therefore looming. We call this shortage of transmission capacity congestion.

Congestion and Flex, what is it again?

Congestion is the situation where the demand for electricity transmission exceeds supply. So there is a shortage of transmission capacity on the electricity grid. As grid operators, until the electricity grid is expanded and/or reinforced, we try to solve this by matching supply and demand as closely as possible. This is done partly with the help from the market such as wholesale customers, CSP/aggregators and energy suppliers through GOPACS.

If these large parties shift their consumption or generation of electricity to another time, the necessary flexibility (or flex for short) in use is created and supply and demand can be shifted. Temporarily storing energy in a battery can also help with this. In this way, temporary capacity shortages in the power grid can be prevented or reduced.

When a shortage of capacity is expected, the congestion situation, grid operators use GOPACS to ask market parties (such as energy suppliers, CSP/aggregators and large companies) whether they can shift their consumption or generation.

When a market party can, it places an order, called a flexbid. With a flexbid, it indicates how much power it can temporarily switch off or on, at what time and what price it wants.

If the flex offer is matched, the market party receives a remuneration.

GOPACS helps to keep the electricity grid reliable

Daan Schut - CTO, Alliander

Market forces contribute to an affordable and reliable energy supply

"GOPACS is the platform with which the network operators can jointly access and coordinate flexible power in the electricity network. By making use of the flexibility of our customers and market parties, we can make the best possible use of the current energy infrastructure. In this way, market forces contribute to an affordable and reliable energy supply."

What People are saying about GOPACS

Vitor Campos
Power trader - Optimax Energy

"Optimax Energy is very enthusiastic about GOPACS because it allows us as a young trading company to participate in a congestion management mechanism in the Netherlands through a very transparent and well-defined process. Energy markets are changing rapidly and we believe these mechanisms also need to evolve to meet the challenges ahead in a more innovative and clear way."

David Leo
Head of Short Term Trading - Engie

"We embrace the transparency that GOPACS brings us in various areas: GOPACS clearly indicates where there are network problems and thus where we cannot further fine-tune our power stations. It also clearly indicates which volumes are sought and traded. This transparency benefits competitiveness."

Bernard Wilmet
CEO - Powerhouse

"Congestion is an important social problem that is only increasing. That is why we were one of the first to join. Powerhouse is convinced that we can offer a solution to the transport problem with the Gopacs platform and the power of our customers."

GOPACS is an initiative of the Dutch grid operators:

Flex available?

Join GOPACS! Participating in GOPACS is interesting for every market party with the ability to influence electricity consumption or the generation of electricity, which can offer this flexibility to trade.