„In the meantime the extent of curtailment has reached a critical level in particular areas in Germany – in sunny months the curtailment are more than 5% amongst our customers. It is surprising for us that many PV plant operators still don’t know, when and for how long the curtailment has lasted respectively how they get compensation” explains Tobias Kurth, Director Sales and Finance at ENcome Energy Performance Deutschland GmbH.
The PV plant operator has to apply the claims for compensation separately with the respective transmission system operators. Until today, there is no standardised procedure. Depending on the grid territory and the transmission system operators the range is between an informal letter, and forms from the network operators or online reporting via the homepage of the transmission system operators. The documentation requirements for the enforcement of compensation claims are still to be described as heterogeneous. The evidence of the shut-down depends on the requirements of the respective transmission system operators and can be done based on the monitoring system, general weather and satellite data, by values of irradiation sensors or by reference values of the network operator.
All in all surprisingly few requests are placed as a lot of plant operators do not know the existence of interventions for feed-in management or that a claim for compensation exists. Other plant operators shy away from the described complexity of the processes. ENcome offers PV plant operators as a part of its activities a standardized procedure for the management of compensation claims for each grid area.
The ENcome group is a pan-European leading and independent provider for the operation of photovoltaic power plants with focus on technical Operation and Maintenance (O&M), technical Asset Management (TAM) and the compilation of technical expertise. At present ENcome operates power plants with a nominal capacity of several hundred megawatts in different countries. Well skilled engineers ensure the best yield for every renewable energy park in any grid environment. Furthermore ENcome offers other services along the asset lifecycle of photovoltaic installations partnering amongst others with renown law firms, tax advisers and security centres.