Good practice:

Virtual Power Plant

The virtual power plant service includes the integration of the power loads of Lappeenranta city owned buildings into the virtual power plant and Fingrid (TSO) balancing energy markets, as well as the related operational and maintenance costs, such as license fees, reporting tools, data security solutions and other needed services. The service has been in operation since March 2020.
The virtual power plant enhances energy efficiency of building stock, and hence contributes by decreasing the carbon footprint of buildings. Virtual power plant “gathers” small building dedicated demand response options and combines them as a larger “virtual power plant”, which can then be operated cost-efficiently, providing business opportunities for the service providers, and cost savings for the building owners.
Included city buildings and loads: 17 buildings connected (ca. 0.1 MW reserve power), including 7 school buildings, 2 kindergartens, 3 sports halls, 1 library, 4 other public service buildings.
At the moment (December 2020) only variable-frequency drive controlled fans are connected as adjustable loads.
An option for addition of 45 buildings to be implemented later.

Connecting public building stock to virtual power plant.

Lappeenranta experiences:
Advanced building automation system is a pre-requirement for successful VPP implementation.
VPP service has worked well and has not caused problems to the indoor air quality.
Frequency containment is continuous symmetric up and down adjustment of power loads within minutes.
Variable frequency drive controlled fans are well suitable to demand response use.
In a typical municipal service building annual income is ca. 4-500 € at the FCR-N market.

VPP service has worked well and has not caused problems to the indoor air quality.

Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) highlight the importance of the ability to interact with connected energy grids.