Munich, 8 October 2024 – Turning flexibility from household batteries into money? What sounds like a dream of the future to many is now possible in the Netherlands thanks to cooperation between Europe's leading smart energy company, gridX, and HalloStroom, a leading Dutch Energy-as-a-Service provider. HalloStroom’s customers in the Netherlands are able to sell the flexibility of their household battery. HalloStroom will trade this flexibility on the imbalance market, allowing households to reduce their monthly electricity costs by up to 180 euros. To successfully implement this, the Dutch company is now using gridX technology, including the gridBox IoT gateway – in this case the EnergieBox – which is installed on site to intelligently control the household battery. An EnergieBox is to be installed at around 1,000 customers by the end of the year. From 2025, HalloStroom aims to equip around 500 households per month with a smart energy management system (EMS).
Flexibility from residential storage: huge potential for the energy transition
“Household batteries and other private storage systems, such as electric cars, hold enormous potential, which we need to tap into if the energy transition is to succeed,” says Tim Steinmetz, Managing Director of gridX. Flexibility from these small-scale assets will play a particularly important role in the future energy system – based on renewable energy – as it could protect the grid from collapse if, for example, renewable production is lower than demand in certain weather conditions. “Players such as HalloStroom, who are already working on making this small-scale flexibility available on the electricity market, are pioneers and I am delighted that we have been able to gain such a partner,” Steinmetz continues. The Netherlands is currently a trailblazing market for the feed-in of small-scale flexible energy: the practice of feeding self-generated solar energy into the grid is standard practice for Dutch households. Special incentive mechanisms, such as net metering, have meant, however, that household batteries have not become standard, as high feed-in tariffs made it unprofitable to store one's own electricity for later use. Although, this is expected to change in the near future. The Dutch government has announced that it will abolish net metering from 2027. “It can be assumed that by then – at the latest – households will switch from feeding in their own electricity to the grid to optimizing their own consumption,” explains Jonas Streng, Co-Founder and CEO of HalloStroom. This is one of the reasons why HalloStroom decided to cooperate with gridX. Today, the technology not only allows small-scale flexibility to be placed on the imbalance market, thus opening up revenue opportunities for prosumer households, but it also allows other use cases to be included in the long term, such as self-sufficiency optimization at the household level.
An all-inclusive package for anyone to rent
Founded in 2016, the Energy-as-a-Service company has a relatively niche concept in the industry: it offers solar panels and everything that goes alongside them – including the EnergieBox – for rent instead of for sale. “We want to ensure that every Dutch person can afford to produce their own electricity,” says Streng. He and his Co-Founders, Robert Lamot and Kees van Wensem, currently have a team of around 60 people. The decision to offer gridX technology with immediate effect was based on the ability to offer customers both short- and long-term value, with the provision of balancing energy from flexible home batteries the first step. “The technology also helps to avoid common penalties that incur above a certain feed-in volume per year,” says Streng. When it comes to connecting household energy assets, HalloStroom also sees the future potential growth in large electricity consumers, such as wallboxes for charging electric vehicles. This is because charging these energy-consuming assets at the wrong time can quickly result in high costs for both end customers and the energy provider. In addition, electric vehicles can also provide flexibility for the imbalance market. Currently, customers can even receive money for delaying the charging of their electric car, and potentially again if it is discharged at the right time. “We are offering our customers progressive technology that will not only benefit them today, but also when net metering comes to an end in 2027,” concludes Streng.
((Photo: © HalloStroom, Reprint free of charge; Image caption))
Valuable synergies: Cooperation between gridX and HalloStroom allows households in the Netherlands to save up to 180 euros per month by charging and discharging their home battery.
gridX is Europe's leading smart energy company based in Aachen and Munich. With its IoT platform XENON, gridX enables manufacturer-independent monitoring and management of distributed energy resources. XENON allows partners to develop and scale energy management solutions faster than ever before. By partnering with gridX, Fastned is able to install more charging points at sites without the need for costly grid extensions, and the Viessmann Group is able to offer its customers intelligent and integrated home energy management systems.
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
.svg){kind=icon}
