Spring is just around the corner, and so are the recurring debates about negative prices at the power exchange on sunny and windy days. During the Pentecost and Easter holidays, they are now practically a given. The season for negative prices lasts from April well into August. In recent years, periods of negative electricity prices have become much more frequent: In 2023, the day-ahead electricity price was zero or less for 301 hours, in 2024, it was already 459 hours. The implications of this for our rapidly changing energy system will be a key topic at EM-Power Europe, the international exhibition for energy management and integrated energy solutions, which will bring together the industry’s leading thinkers, players and decision makers in Munich from May 7–9, 2025. EM-Power Europe will take place as part of The smarter E Europe, Europe’s largest alliance of exhibitions for the energy industry, alongside three other exhibitions (Intersolar Europe, ees Europe and Power2Drive Europe).
First of all, negative electricity prices are not the end of the world. In fact, they show that the electricity market is working and that the supply of climate-neutral, renewable electricity exceeds momentary demand. This is both a signal and an incentive to shift power consumption, in other words, withdraw electricity from the grid when renewable supply is high. However, negative electricity prices also point to the fact that development in the last few years has been asymmetrical: Great progress has been made in increasing solar power generation, while the deployment of flexible consumers and storage systems has been comparably sluggish. This discrepancy cannot become permanent. Supply and demand must be brought back into balance.
One obvious approach is to buy and store electricity when prices are low or even negative, and then feed it back into the grid later when demand and spot prices are high. The storage capacity required for this is growing exponentially around the world. According to the Bundesnetzagentur’s core energy market data register, large-scale storage systems with a total capacity of around 2.5 GW are currently being planned in Germany. But the connection requests to Germany’s four transmission system operators are of a much higher order: A survey by pv magazine found that at the end of last year, there were 650 connection requests for a total of 226 GW of storage capacity. It is not known how many projects that requested connection were actually built, but Thomas Dederichs, Head of Strategy and Energy Policy at transmission system operator Amprion is already calling it a “tsunami of connection requests”.
At least as important as the deployment of storage systems is the flexibilization potential, both on the side of consumers and in the management of commercial and industrial processes. When combined, private households have considerable potential for participating in the electricity market. Many households have already become prosumers rather than consumers with a largely rigid load profile, simply by operating a private solar installation. Together, many EV chargers, batteries and heat pumps could form manageable swarms, which would turn them into proper electricity market players. Market players such as sonnen and Lichtblick have already developed corresponding business models.
The potential of commerce and industry, albeit more difficult to grasp, is almost as important. Which processes could actually become flexible, to what degree and under which conditions varies from business to business and requires individual planning. For example, if and when to increase or decrease loads and the length of the lead time vary widely, but can have a massive impact. The Kopernikus project SynErgie concludes that in Germany, industrial companies could reduce their load for 15 minutes by up to 3.3 GW on demand. For the same amount of time, the output could be increased by 1.5 GW.
The European industry association smartEn has calculated the impact of flexibilizing all market participants: A comprehensive integration of all technical flexibilities into the market could therefore cut the cost of electricity generation in Europe by 4.6 billion euros while reducing the curtailment of renewables by 61 percent. Michael Villa, Executive Director of smartEn, explains: “Activation of flexible demand is a strategic priority to increase the access to affordable energy prices for all consumers and specifically improve the competitiveness of industries in Europe. We cannot rely on geopolitical dynamics to reduce energy prices: flexible demand can achieve this objective in the short-term while also providing extra remunerations to those participating in flexibility schemes.”
The international exhibition EM-Power Europe offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the art of technologies and solutions for creating and providing flexibility on a large scale. From May 7–9, 2025, innovators, decision makers and practitioners will come together to showcase products, services and business models for integrated energy solutions and resilient power grids, and discuss future trends and market dynamics. EM-Power Europe is part of The smarter E Europe, the continent’s largest alliance of exhibitions for the energy industry. The organizers are expecting more than 3,000 exhibitors and over 110,000 visitors to attend the four exhibitions on 206,000 square meters in the 19 halls and the Outdoor Area of the fully booked Messe München. Flexibilization will also be a relevant topic at the events and sessions of the EM-Power Europe Conference and The smarter E Forum.
EM-Power Europe, and the parallel events Intersolar Europe, ees Europe and Power2Drive Europe, will take place from May 7–9, 2025 as part of The smarter E Europe, Europe’s largest alliance of exhibitions for the energy industry, at Messe München.