Red Eléctrica de España and Ente Vasco de la Energía have concluded the AGREGA project, a pilot programme for electricity demand-side management of a group of industrial SMEs in the Basque Country. The project was possible thanks to the coordination of Energía y Gestión ASE (aggregator company) and the collaboration of INDRA and ZIV.

This R&D+i project, which has lasted a year and had an estimated budget of 500,000 euros, consisted of assessing the technical feasibility of the demand-side management service in industrial SMEs in the region through the aggregation of consumption as a potential service for the operation of the electricity system that would improve its efficiency, providing it with a new operation tool.

The AGREGA project involved four factories belonging to the Fagor Ederlan, ULMA Piping and Satuerca industrial groups. These companies were equipped with measurement and communication systems to integrate their electricity consumption at a node or Demand Control Centre (CECODE) in an aggregated form and make a part of this demand available to the entire electricity system when circumstances so require.

This initiative has enabled to check the feasibility of the figure of aggregator as an intermediary between the consumer and system operation, and of the demand-side management service applied to the medium-sized industry as an available resource for the system operator, providing at the same time increased knowledge regarding the behaviour of industrial demand.