ESFORIN sells the flexibility provided by gas-powered generators and other systems on the energy exchange’s spot market – a business model that depends on speed and reliability. Compelling reasons for the company, and its customers, to rely on WAGO Controllers and WAGO Cloud.
Integrate Renewable Energies into Existing Systems
ESFORIN, headquartered in Essen, protects the environment with fossil fuel energy generation. How so? ESFORIN sells flexibilities from gas-fired power stations – and other energy producers, like battery storage or industrial systems – on the energy exchange’s intraday market. When short-term bottlenecks occur on the market because, e.g., wind turbines or solar arrays didn’t deliver as much energy as predicted, ESFORIN’s systems fill the gap. The company has become a safety net for renewable energies, making it indispensable in the ongoing expansion of photovoltaics and wind farms.
“We use existing systems to integrate renewable energies into the system,” explains Christoph Gardlo, cofounder and COO of ESFORIN. “This lets us contribute to the energy transition, protect the climate and ensure the electrical supply.” Gardlo employs the following rule of thumb: Selling one megawatt of flexible output from gas-fired plants and other systems enables the expansion of twenty megawatts of wind or solar energy. As confirmed by TÜV Rheinland, ESFORIN prevented 197,000 tons of CO2 emissions in 2021 due to its marketable services in the upper three-digit megawatt range.
The model represents more than a simple victory for climate protection; the system operators also win. “We generate attractive revenues for our clients because we advantageously use our automated marketing to optimally exploit the price fluctuations in the intraday trading market,” explains Gardlo.
Christoph Gardlo | Co-founder and COO of ESFORIN
InfraServ Gendorf’s GuD Power Plant
One of the systems ESFORIN uses is located in the Gendorf chemical industrial park in southeastern Bavaria. InfraServ’s gas and steam turbine power plant (GuD) supplies its electrical needs and covers the heating requirements for the chemical industrial park. The gas turbine also has reserves in its electrical generation, depending on the season. “We intensively considered how we could exploit this potential and gain additional profits with our system – naturally without negatively impacting the supply security for our site operations. We were already familiar with selling flexibilities; however, we wanted to service the entire bandwidth of possibilities to optimize our marketing performance,” reports Peter Geyer, coordinator at InfraServe Gendorf.
InfraServe now predicts daily how much maximum additional output the gas turbine can provide and at what times on the following day for the short-term market; it also forecasts how much the minimum electricity price must be to cover the costs of ramping up the gas turbine. InfraServe shares this data with its partner ESFORIN as a limit condition for each following sales day.
Speed and Reliability
Electricity is sold on the intraday market in blocks of 15 minutes to an hour. Trading begins at 3 pm on the previous day and ends five minutes before the respective start of delivery. For example, if a participant wants to sell electricity from 8 pm to 8:15, trading is open until 7:55 pm.
Like a leopard waiting in ambush, ESFORIN bides its time on the intraday trading market. According to Gardlo, “We strike immediately when someone is prepared to pay the price that InfraServ Gendorf demands for the 15-minute blocks of their output.” To do this, ESFORIN uses a proprietary algorithm, which is programmed for each customer and automatically bids according to the stipulations of the boundaries that system operators specify. When a deal is completed, it must move quickly because there are only five minutes between the close of trading and the service provision. “We translate the deal into a request signal, which the telecontrol technology transmits to the power plant’s control center without delay. This ensures that it induces the necessary increase in the turbine’s output at the right time,” explains the ESFORIN CEO.
After speed, reliability is another critical need for this data transport chain. “It is extremely important that the output request reaches the system so that it can actually provide the necessary output and then stop it at the proper point,” explains Gardlo. Reliability is also essential for the power plant operator. “Signals that are repeatedly incorrect, with relation to the times or output levels, would end the sales of our flexibility over the short or long term. This is, after all, just a side gig that cannot negatively impact our system’s regular operation,” states Geyer.
Christoph Gardlo | Co-founder and COO of ESFORIN
Transmitting Commands Practically in Real-Time
These are good reasons for ESFORIN to rely on WAGO products for their projects. WAGO Cloud functions as a platform to output the algorithm commands to customers’ control systems; the WAGO PFC100 and PFC200 Controllers work to quickly and securely deliver the request signals to the customer systems. In addition, they back up data from the signals into the cloud. “In light of our responsibility for securing the electrical supply, there is no doubt that we use industrial-grade components, which have been tested over the long term and function reliably,” says Gardlo. Geyer confirms this fact, “After a year’s experience with the system, we can truly say that it works.”
For ESFORIN, a central benefit of using WAGO Controllers lies in their wide variability. “While these products are standardized hardware, they are, due to an extensive range of interfaces, sufficiently flexible to easily handle the heterogeneity encompassed by our customers’ process control technology,” explains Gardlo. WAGO’s Cloud Connectivity Protocol guarantees seamless connection to the cloud. After consulting with system operators about the data points to be transferred in both directions, ESFORIN runs proprietary software on the controllers to ensure communication. The customers then install the controllers in their control centers. “WAGO's controllers can be implemented as plug-and-play components. This corresponds to our approach of burdening our customers with the least amount of effort,” states the ESFORIN CEO.
WAGO Cloud, operated using Microsoft Azure, also ensures that the tens of thousands of commands, output daily by the ESFORIN algorithm, are correctly delivered to the customer systems in the available time intervals – thus virtually in real-time. This is one of the more unusual applications of WAGO Cloud because many use it as a data hub. ESFORIN’s applications demonstrate, however, that it also reliably satisfies these demands.
Flexibly Selling Flexibilities
“After only a few months since the beginning of our collaboration on the marketing models defined by ESFORIN, we have learned one thing: one must be flexible when selling flexibilities. This means that the strategy must adapt to changing circumstances (technical/operational in addition to energy economics), and this can do that,” states Geyer.
With ESFORIN, we have a competent partner by our side. And with WAGO Cloud and WAGO's controllers, we also have strong technologies available to assist in optimally exploiting the multiple opportunities in the energy market.
Text: Ralph Diermann – Energy Journalist
Photos: Tremonia
