GE Digital and EPEX SPOT Partner to Accelerate Grid-Centric Flexibility Markets for System Operators

This collaboration represents a shared commitment to advancing intelligent distribution grid flexibility. Together, GE Digital and EPEX SPOT are committed to empowering System Operators (SOs) to optimize grid operations by enabling efficient participation in flexibility markets at scale. These markets enable SOs to procure flexibility to physically solve grid congestion and enable Flexibility Service Providers to promote the use of distributed energy resources (DER) flexibility.

In this strategic partnership, GE Digital and EPEX SPOT are aligning their software solutions to enable better interoperability. GE Digital’s GridOS^® DERMS platform is designed to deliver intelligent grid management capabilities for DSOs. The scalable software, underpinned by the GridOS integrated, modular, and standards-based architecture delivers a robust set of tools to connect, visualize, control, and optimize DERs from both technical and economic perspectives. This includes things like comprehensive visibility into the network and DERs, advanced forecasting, identification of constraints requiring DER flexibility services, and optimized determination of the required flexibility at each location of the grid, including the low voltage grid. EPEX SPOT’s Localflex platform provides an end-to-end trading platform for Flexibility Service Providers and DSOs to enroll DERs in flexibility markets, to view requested DSO flexibility, and to match their offers to these requests using a state-of-the-art clearing algorithm.

By connecting these two solutions, GridOS DERMS and Localflex seek to empower DSOs to more seamlessly procure flexibility at scale, advance toward decarbonization goals, and reduce the cost of network reinforcement via more economic market solutions.

“This strategic partnership between GE Digital and EPEX SPOT acknowledges the growing challenge of managing DERs on the grid and speaks to our commitment to bring solutions with real value to utilities around the globe,” said Mahesh Sudhakaran, General Manager, GE Digital Grid Software. “We believe that together, we can help set the standard for how DER flexibility is procured and how a DSO DERMS interfaces with market platforms. We are excited that EPEX SPOT will be joining our GridOS ecosystem of partners to lead the way for DSOs.”

EPEX SPOT’s Localflex platform has proven its capabilities through its involvement in successful projects in the UK. It provides a comprehensive process to operate a flexibility market, including efficient matching of buyers and sellers of DER flexibility across multiple levels of the grid. Localflex’s clearing algorithm accounts for grid capacity limits, provided by GridOS DERMS, to deliver an efficient matching of flexibility trades within a system which can already coordinate between Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and DSOs actions.

“This partnership reinforces our ambition for the Localflex solution to become a standard in the daily operations of system operators and flexibility providers. Only by efficiently integrating demand side flexibility into the grid, can we accelerate and achieve a cost-efficient energy transition” said Ralph Danielski, Chief Executive Officer of EPEX SPOT.

The collaboration between GE Digital and EPEX SPOT plans to grant utilities enhanced visibility and control over their grid assets, enabling effortless participation in energy markets and efficient management of distributed energy resources. By ensuring interoperability between the solutions, utilities can fully leverage grid flexibility, achieve regulatory compliance, and realize significant cost reductions.

About GE Digital

GE Digital is the $1B software business at GE Vernova that is putting data to work to accelerate a new era of energy. We deliver the platforms and intelligent applications necessary to accelerate electrification and decarbonization across the energy ecosystem – from how power is created, how it is orchestrated, to how it is consumed. More than 20,000 customers around the globe use our software to help plan, predict, manage, and optimize operations today for a sustainable tomorrow. For more information, visit www.ge.com/digital.