Lerta, a company developing the Virtual Power Plant in Central and Eastern Europe, has contracted a new capacity obligation for 2023, increasing its capacity portfolio by more than 2.5 times YoY.
In the course of the additional auction for the delivery year 2023, which took place on March 17, 2022, Lerta’s DSR units concluded annual capacity contracts for a total of 124 MW, which, combined with the previously concluded contracts, translates into an increase of the portfolio to 134 MW. This is over 2.5 times more than the company manages in 2022. Lerta’s contracted revenues from the Capacity Market for 2023, which the company intends to share with active energy consumers, exceeded PLN 36 million.
‘The concluded contracts are a significant step towards the achievement of our goal of managing at least 500 MW of DSR capacity in 2026’ says Borys Tomala, founder and CEO of Lerta. ‘Our business in Poland is growing dynamically and we are consistently connecting new customers to the Virtual Power Plant. DSR and Capacity Market are not for large, energy-consuming companies only, our VPP platform & service allow even small enterprises connected to the low voltage grid to participate in the market. The smallest site we manage provides approx. 50 kW of flexible power on demand’ adds Borys Tomala.
DSR for industrial customers connected to the Lerta Virtual Power Plant generates additional revenue from a readiness to reduce the demand for power from the grid in the event of low reserves in the power system. Companies that decide to provide such a service can count on over PLN 100,000 of additional revenue per 1 MW of capacity. In return, they undertake quarterly tests of reducing energy consumption lasting one hour and reacting in the event of an actual crisis in the Polish grid. However, money is not everything.
‘In addition to the obvious financial benefits, so important in the times of very high wholesale energy prices and the increasing capacity fee, cooperation with Lerta also means access to a free tool for energy management and cost optimization’ says Marcin Sajkiewicz, Sales Manager responsible for industrial customers at Lerta ‘Thanks to our capacity fee module, we enable customers to plan the operation of plants in such a way as to maximize the recently introduced discount on the fee, which requires maintaining appropriate ratio of peak to off-peak consumption. In addition, thanks to precise data on the plant’s demand, we will be able to offer tailored conditions for the supply of electricity and for the offtake and balancing of surplus energy from behind-the-meter generators’ adds Marcin Sajkiewicz.
Lerta is an energy startup founded in Poland with an international shareholder which strategy focuses on development in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania. In all the countries in which it is present, the Company has a license to trade in electricity, thanks to which it also aggregates generation sources within the Virtual Power Plant. In March 2022, thanks to the concluded DSR contracts with energy consumers and PPA contracts with energy producers, the volume of power managed by Lerta exceeded 100 MW. This is almost a double increase compared to the beginning of this year.
Piotr Michalak
E-mail: piotr.michalak@lerta.energy
tel. +48 697 884 559
About Lerta – www.lerta.energy
Lerta is a company that develops modern energy services. The company helps consumers and producers of energy effectively manage its production and consumption, and thanks to the automation of supply and demand control, additionally monetize the possibility of adjusting the operation of assets to the market requirements in real time. Lerta’s actions help minimize the carbon footprint, increase green energy production and protect the planet. In 2016, Lerta was named one of the 30 best young energy and technology companies in the world by experts and investors from the Silicon Valley. In 2017, the company completed the prestigious MIT Enterprise Forum Poland acceleration program, and in 2018 PGE Ventures (belonging to Polska Grupa Energetyczna) and ValueTech Seed invested in it. Since 2019 Lerta is one of the DSR aggregators operating on the Polish market and the only one independent of state-owned energy groups. In 2020 the company took over Power Block – a competitive aggregator with contracts on the Capacity Market, and the group of investors was joined by the Photon Energy Group, listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Since 2021, the Company has been authorized to trade electricity in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.
Photo: Borys Tomala, CEO (L), Krzysztof Drożyński, CTO (R)