500 selling their own power

500 selling their own power.Photo: Newswire

Currently, less than 500 Norwegian households have solar panels and sell the power they have to spare. New rules and new technologies will make it easier to get what is called plus customer.

To send surplus electricity into the network, you must have installed a so-called AMS-measure. At the year’s end, around 500,000 meters had been rolled out, and during 2017 two million will remain in place at Norwegian power customers.
– In 2019, all current subscribers in Norway will have installed the new advanced meter. That is 2.9 million smart meters must be installed, says senior adviser Tracey Fladen in NVE.
The acronym AMS stands for advanced metering systems and in this context is a power meter that detects power both in and out of a facility.
Commissioned by NVE, Statnett has now build a computer center, Elhub where all consumption data from AMS gauges should be collected. It will help make it easier to get Plus customer.
Soon 500
There is no overview of how many households produce electricity today and is plus customers.
Figures from major online companies that have launched plus customer agreements actively, suggest that we are heading towards 500 households. Hafslund, Bright, TrønderEnergi, Network Norway and Agder Energi has a total of approximately 370 plus clients.
Ragnhild Bjelland-Hanley, head of the Norwegian solar association, says there is no immediate financial gain by producing electricity themselves.
– The private customers who do this currently run most of the environmental or technology interest, while some think that it is an investment that will pay off in the long term.
The expectation that one goes in plus over time, grounded in that a typical plant will produce electricity long after the investment is paid, she says.
– This means that solar facilites provide free electricity after it is paid off.
Bjelland-Hanley envisages that such private power production will pay off in the future.
– The new rules and new business models, which offer to lease the plant, helps that we have a market that works.
Until now, plus customers in practice depended on that grid companies being willing to buy power from them. Going forward it is intended that plus customer choose a power supplier that will buy their excess power.
This year  rules including exempts plus customers from some of the cost of sending electricity into the grid. Moreover, the NVE is developing new rules that facilitates that a housing company may also sell excess power and that the proceeds be distributed by power customers in the housing company.
Strong current brain
The brain in the future Norwegian power system data exchange will be Elhub.
– Elhub will register all subscribers consumption hourly. In addition to many other features, Elhub will keep track of how much each plus customer self consumes and how much is sent out on the network, says Tor Bjarne Heiberg, who is project manager for work with Elhub Statnett.
Thus Elhub will also make sure to provide the basis for the amount plus the customer will pay the power bill when surplus power is drawn from private consumption.
– The functionality will provide very efficient handling plus customers in the electricity market, he adds.
Source: Statnett / Norway Today