Scholt Energy is an energy supplier, optimizer, and balance and congestion service provider with operations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. Scholt buys electricity from wind and solar parks through regular and corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) and offers its customers access to all relevant energy markets.
Bert Eissen, Energy Transition Director, and Sam McDermott, Product Owner, explain the current challenge of their renewable energy customers and the benefits of teaming up with Dexter.
Sam McDermott begins by highlighting the changes in renewables financing:
“Over the upcoming years, the subsidy will be depleted, making it quite difficult to develop solar and wind parks. We provide developers with a fixed price, which they can use to ensure the bankability of their projects.”
Scholt helps its clients by offering an energy solution that integrates added flexibility and optimized returns. Sam mentions curtailment of renewables as a means to increase balancing revenues:
“One of the most important parts is to curtail at the right time during the day to maximize revenues. For this, we use Dexter’s Flex Optimization product.”
Sam McDermott further describes a particular use of flexibility in the Netherlands. Here, short-term traders must navigate regulation state 2, also known as dual pricing. This occurs when the transmission system operator (TSO) activates upward and downward regulation volumes within the same program time unit (PTU) to stabilize the grid.
By activating this measure, the settled imbalance prices are split to penalize both positive and negative imbalance contributions. Flex Optimization has proven valuable to navigate this non-trivial risk:
“By using Flex Optimization, we see a decrease in exposure for our renewable steering during instances of dual pricing on the Dutch balancing market.”
Beyond a good forecast, Scholt Energy appreciates the service its team receives from Dexter:
“Dexter’s support team is on point. For example, if there’s something wrong on the side of TenneT on the balancing market, we get a heads-up to shut down our real-time steering of our assets.”
The excellent results of Scholt’s partnership with Dexter are a reason for Sam McDermott and Bert Eissen to be excited about what’s next:
“I’m looking forward to collaborating with Dexter in the coming years. Together, we can develop new products to help our customers across all countries in the energy transition.”