Farmers’ income situation: securing the future through consistently high energy revenues

How the Bauersachs biogas plant secures its location through optimized scheduling and high balancing energy prices. Since May, prices on the balancing energy markets have continued to soar, which has greatly improved the income situation of farmers who operate their plants flexibly and in line with their schedules.

Tobias Bauersachs agrees: “During the first four months of 2021, the additional revenue from direct marketing and balancing energy averaged €2,800 per month. Between May and October 2021, we already recorded an average of €6,300 per month. In October, peak values of € 9,700 were achieved via balancing energy and € 4,300 via the schedule. An enormous contribution to securing the future of our biogas plants.” Balancing energy accounts for the lion’s share.

Always with a view of the nearby Callenberg Castle, a historic summer residence of the ducal family of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he has constantly developed the site with a great deal of personal effort and hours of work.

Biogas pioneer continues to develop site. In direct marketing since 2012

Plant operator Tobias Bauersachs from Beuerfeld near Coburg in Franconia has been working intensively on biogas marketing since 2005. He was one of the first biogas pioneers in the region to install a 200 kWh plant back in 2005. With the introduction of the EEG in 2012, he also became an early e2m customer for direct marketing.

Today, 130 flexible kW form the basis of revenue

Just outside Beuerfeld are the four biogas CHP units with an installed capacity of just under 2.5 MW. There is also a storage facility with a storage volume of 3,000 m³. Tobias Bauersachs ensures the energy output via liquid manure, dung, silage and grass cuttings from the surrounding communities.

Of the 550 kW provided on average, 420 kW is inflexible. The schedule revenue is generated from the flexible share, in this case 130 kW. With full flexibilization (all CHP units run in start/stop mode), the schedule revenue can be increased more than 2.5-fold. The plant is managed by BBV LandSiedlung GmbH in Würzburg, an important cooperation partner of GeLa Energie GmbH from Lünne in Lower Saxony.

Revenue increased significantly thanks to OptimusFlex specialists

For Tobias Bauersachs, making the CHP units more flexible was a key step towards future-proofing his systems. He would like to express his thanks for the expertise of his e2m colleagues and their active support on site. All four CHPs were prequalified for balancing energy in April 2017. The transmission system operator TenneT requires this system service to ensure stability in the electricity grid.

Since May 2021, Bauersachs has been using the e2m OptimusFlex optimization service with automatically generated schedules, in which e2m makes optimal use of the 4-hour time slots of the balancing energy tender.

The OptimusFlex optimization service was introduced by e2m two years ago. It provides operators with automatically generated schedules in order to achieve optimal results on the exchanges. Optimizing the schedules makes the best possible use of price dynamics.

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About e2m
Energy2market (e2m), founded in 2009 at its current headquarters in Leipzig, is one of the largest aggregators and energy traders for renewable energies in Germany. The energy service provider bundles, monitors and controls over 5,500 decentralized generation plants from renewable producers, electricity storage facilities and consumers via its own virtual power plant and networks them with the electricity trading markets. With 3,158 MW of marketed generation capacity from renewable energy plants, e2m is one of the largest direct marketers for energy and is the largest pool provider for balancing energy. In 2019, the business magazine Brand eins named e2m one of the most innovative companies in the energy sector; FOCUS Business voted the company one of the “TOP 50 SME employers” in 2018. With the infrastructure required to market energy flexibility, market access to all relevant trading markets and the many years of expertise of around 100 employees, e2m is helping to shape the energy market of the future. Since September 2019, e2m has been part of the renewables division Local Energy Management (LEM) of the energy group EDF.