ENERGY CLUSTERS

Changes of the energy market, aiming at the dispersion of energy sources and the introduction of new technologies for obtaining energy from renewable sources are the new challenges for operators of energy distribution and transmission networks, including the operators of the power grid and all energy market participating companies. In order to follow these changes, the market and IT suppliers have developed solutions such as Virtual Power Plants (VPP), which are particularly applicable in energy clusters. These solutions allow for associating and aggregating many dispersed sources and representing them in the system as one entity or one source. 

These solutions allow precise forecasting both the supply side, i.e. the production levels of many different energy sources, often dependent on weather conditions, and the demand side, i.e. consumption depending on industrial production needs or climatic conditions. Balancing these two zones both at the local level of the energy cluster and at the level of the surrounding energy market allows for both energy and financial optimization. 

Taking into account the possibility of storing energy in the form of battery storage or hydrogen storage, this creates additional opportunities to trade energy in a way that is independent of weather conditions and financially optimal. The use of energy storage also opens up new opportunities for the provision of system services, which are a very lucrative market. Supporting the processes of energy generation and consumption with trading  processes and managing the processes of energy reduction or utilization creates additional levels of optimization of these processes, both from the financial and energy perspective.