The marketer Nexus Energia and the technology company Bamboo Energy have teamed up to explore the flexibility of demand and have made a pilot project a reality in Galicia. The initiative, which has also had the collaboration of Enertra engineering, has made it possible to exploit the opportunities for energy flexibility in the facilities of Distribuciones Monteverde, a distributor of frozen and refrigerated food for the hospitality sector , restoration and catering. After the actions carried out, the company was able to reduce the electricity bill by 6%.

The pilot project started last October 2022. "We explored together with Distribuciones Monteverde and Enertra the flexibility possibilities of a production center" explains Marc Pahissa, Director of Innovation at Nexus Energia, who describes the project as "disruptive" taking into account that "until then the commercial companies only sold the energy that the customer needed, and that means going further".

Using Bamboo Energy's software platform, which takes into account industrial processes, consumption parameters, and the Galician company's electricity tariff, the project managed to establish specific temperature guidelines in the cold rooms, minimizing costs. In addition, Bamboo's software made it possible to evaluate the potential of Distribuciones Monteverde's participation in flexibility markets, which help avoid network congestion in exchange for better prices, in an automated way.

"The company does not have to schedule flexibility, Bamboo Energy automatically and through artificial intelligence predicts flexibility and manages its cameras with real-time data", explained Cristina Corchero, CTO and co-founder of Bamboo Energy, who highlights that this project is another step for the industry to continue "adding layers of intelligence to its processes".

And another of the achievements of this pilot is to have obtained the participation of an industrial company, in a sector used to restricting the compartment of its data. "There is still a lack of trust in the industrial sector, barriers must be overcome to allow you to govern your processes and operations from a cloud platform," comments Corchero.

With this pilot, Distribuciones Monteverde has seen its bill reduced by 6%, and has validated that participating in other flexibility services through the network could add 8% more savings thanks to the income it would generate. Currently, the pilot is still underway, already in commercial operation, and Distribuciones Monteverde is exploring expanding the operating hours of flexibility to increase savings in energy costs.