Next Kraftwerke has commenced power trading for a proportion of the Dutch Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN) offshore wind park following the startup of the project's first turbines. The wind park is being built by CrossWind, a joint venture of Shell and Eneco, and will reach a capacity of 759 MW when fully operational at the end of this year. Next Kraftwerke acts as the Balancing Responsible Party (BRP) of the wind farm and trades Shell's share of electricity on short-term markets. Eneco will trade its own share of electricity.
Combining specialised know-how
The goal of the collaborative approach between Shell and Next Kraftwerke is to combine their specialised know-how from long-term hedging to short-term optimisation. "At Next Kraftwerke we have many years of experience in managing assets of different sizes optimally on the different wholesale electricity markets and we are experts in providing flexibility for grid balancing", says Hendrik Sämisch, CEO at Next Kraftwerke. "Once the park has been fully commissioned - we'll take care of curtailment for redispatch and reserve power provision to the Dutch transmission system operator TenneT, the developer of the offshore power socket' connecting HKN to the grid. Shell is taking care of the long-term hedging and contributes with specialised and reliable wind forecasts thanks to their experience from other Dutch offshore wind parks."
Maintaining balance between energy injection and offtake
With the first power injection from the wind park, Next Kraftwerke assumed its role as the BRP. In this role, Next Kraftwerke's task is to maintain the balance between energy injection and offtake by appropriate trading activities and, if necessary, by curtailing power generation. Curtailment measures will play a significant role when the wind park is fully operational and its power generation is integrated into the portfolio. As the park doesn't rely on guaranteed revenues from subsidies, it needs to optimally respond to fluctuations in market prices. During moments of negative day-ahead and intraday prices, it can therefore be necessary to curtail the park's generation.
One of the major offshore wind parks in Europe
With a projected annual output of about 3.3 TWh, the HKN wind park is set to be a major wind farm in Europe and when fully operational its production will cover the equivalent of 2.8% of the current Dutch electricity demand. "European countries have agreed to build out about 111 GW of offshore wind capacity by the end of this decade. Projects like HKN make a significant contribution to achieving this goal and accelerating the important and urgent expansion of renewables," explains Hendrik Sämisch.
