We transform energy into a source of income

To ensure the safety, reliability and economic conditions of the electrical system during contingency situations, CREG has been promoting its Voluntary Disconnectable Demand mechanism, which consists in deliberately reducing energy consumption during critical system moments, such as maximum annual demand times, decreased generation capacity, network congestion or high market prices. And users who are willing to reduce their energy consumption in some of these risk situations receive a payment for it.

In Colombia, managing energy consumption does pay off

To better get into context, you should know that in order to avoid shortages, large power generators have a duty to support their production when they are going to carry out maintenance work or when they go through any of the emergency situations that we mentioned before. However, previously they only had the option to go to other generators in the secondary market to support their generation and thus achieve their production quotas.

Understanding this need, we created a new backup alternative for large generators: the Voluntary Disconnectable Demand (VDD) program, which allows users to generate extra income due to their availability of reduced energy consumption and/or availability of power generation with their backup plants.

The VDD program works as an insurance service

Think about the prepaid medicine service for which you pay a monthly fee, regardless of whether or not you use the service. However, you pay it because you know that if something comes up you will have comprehensive medical coverage.

The same applies to a power generator. For a certain time, they pay the companies participating in the VDD program to deliver a certain availability of energy, so they can be assured that if a critical situation such as El Niño phenomenon worsens, their production will not fall short.

An increasingly important program in Colombia

Taking into account that this topic has gathered so much interest, we invited Diego Tunarrosa, responsible for the development of this type of solutions at Enel Colombia, to our webinar “What you should know about the voluntary disconnectable demand”, with whom we talked about the scope and opportunities that this program entails for companies.

If you want to know how your business can participate in the program and what the selection criteria are, play the video now!