Enel X Wins a Taiwan Sustainability Action Award for Virtual Power Plant Achievements

• Enel X Taiwan won the Taiwan Sustainability Action Bronze Award in the "SDG 13 Climate Action" category with its "Virtual Power Plant Accelerates the Energy Transition" initiative.
• The “Taiwan Sustainability Action Award” was established by TAISE to recognize outstanding achievements and contributions towards the United Nations’ 17 SDGs, making it a benchmark award in the domestic sustainability field.

Taipei, August 9, 2024 – Enel X Taiwan participated for the first time in the “4th Taiwan Sustainability Action Awards” hosted by the Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy (TAISE). With its “Virtual Power Plant Accelerates the Energy Transition” initiative, Enel X Taiwan won the Bronze Award in the “Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 Climate Action” category, gaining recognition for its efforts and contributions towards energy transition and climate change mitigation.

The “Taiwan Sustainability Action Award” was established by TAISE to recognize outstanding achievements and contributions towards the United Nations’ 17 SDGs, making it a benchmark award in the domestic sustainability field. This year, a total of 230 companies and organizations participated in the competition, evaluated rigorously by 130 judges.

Enel X’s global business strategy focuses on achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, with “SDG 13—Climate Action” at its core. Using VPPs to accelerate the development of renewable energy helps achieve “SDG 7—Affordable and Clean Energy,” while decarbonizing energy infrastructure and promoting electrification. VPPs and demand response services enable C&I enterprises to rethink the energy use of their existing facilities with innovative approaches, to adopt digital technologies, and to achieve “SDG 9—Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure,” thereby enhancing energy efficiency and creating “sustainable cities” in line with SDG 11, fostering an ongoing sustainable cycle.

“Our vision is to enable everyone to make better energy choices, thereby improving daily life. By aggregating distributed flexible power resources like demand response through virtual power plants, we help accelerate Taiwan’s energy transition and achieve net-zero carbon emission goals,” said Andreoli.

VPPs aggregate various distributed energy resources, including flexible power used by enterprises for demand response, battery energy storage systems, and generators. These resources, when aggregated, can provide an equivalent benefit to a power generator coming online. This dispatchable power capacity helps to balance the grid when it is under strain, to avoid blackouts.

In response to net-zero carbon emissions and energy transition targets, using demand response can avoid the high costs and emissions associated with building additional power plants. Therefore, VPPs which aggregate demand response resources, are crucial resources in the energy system, and the quickest, cheapest way to provide power reserves as the energy load comes from existing resources.

Currently, in Taiwan, Enel X focuses on providing customized integrated energy solutions for C&I power users. Through VPP participation, large energy users can practice circular economy and sustainability easily and efficiently, while also receiving payments for the grid service provided. This creates a positive sustainable cycle: participants not only enhance facility backup power achieve energy-saving goals, support grid stability, and develop new revenue, but also contribute to accelerating the energy transition.

Enel X currently operates the largest demand response VPP in Taiwan by capacity and number of resources on the Energy Trading Platform. The company is dedicated to continuing to drive technological innovation and business expansion, leading Taiwan’s energy transition and striving for a greener, more sustainable future.