Food and beverage companies as well as farmers are supporting the electricity grid and getting paid for it. They do this by strategically reducing energy demand at certain times in response to a grid need or signal.
While powering down might seem counter-intuitive to business continuity, to the contrary many organisations are looking at VPP and Demand Response participation as a means to maintain resiliency of their operations and to protect their business against a power outage and loss of productivity.
In this interview with Food & Beverage Magazine, Enel X consultant Andrew Sutherland shares insights and examples of our work in the sector.
Our national bakery client said, "The headline reason we signed up for power flexibility was to ensure business continuity and management of risk. We are risk averse, and look to understand how we can proactively manage risk, whether that’s a plant going down or finding other opportunities to improve. We were aware we had capabilities around backup generation, but only through Enel X’s program we realised our site’s risk profile was bigger than expected."
Michael Versteden, Director of Verstedens Egg Farm said, "The returns will fund almost 30% of the cost of a new generator, which we have now purchased. We had concerns over the reliability of our primary back up unit and participating in Enel X’s programs helped us understand our exposure.
"We learnt that AEMO forecasted electricity supply shortfalls in Victoria. This high likelihood of power outages, combined with our previous less reliable backup generator could’ve left us very exposed. If we were to lose power for an extended period, it would be very dangerous for our chickens and could result in many dying, plus a large number of eggs that could no longer be sold."
We help organisations reduce costs without the need for investment in new infrastructure, by making equipment more efficient. Learn more about it here.
