ENERGY POOL

Energy Pool is a leading company in Europe for demand-side energy-flexibility aggregation, as well as a key-player in the European energy-flexibility market. As such, the company is one of the industrial partners in the Horizon Europe-funded “Flexibility in Research Infrastructures for global CArbon Neutrality” (FlexRICAN) project. Three major research partners have joined forces in FlexRICAN. In addition to the EMFL, who provided significant input, these are the two research infrastructures ELI – Extreme Light Infrastructures and ESS – European Spallation Source, with the latter leading the project.

At the heart of the smart grid revolution, Energy Pool manages and optimizes complex energy systems – including industrial sites, distributed generation, renewable energy sources, and storage assets – for a more reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy. The company has been one of the pioneers of the French electricity flexibility market since 2009, providing demand-side management solutions to support grid stability during peak hours.

Beyond providing grid services, the company’s flexibility solutions deliver multiple benefits: They reduce CO₂ emissions, facilitate the seamless integration of renewable energy, and help to achieve significant cost savings.

Marion PERRIN, Energy Pool’s Research Director, points out: “The development of our business sector has accelerated over the past two years, encouraged by the European Union and the definition of ambitious objectives to increase flexibility in electricity consumption and to improve energy efficiency. On an international scale, many emerging countries are considering integrating consumption flexibility to avoid costly over-investments, which often use hydrocarbons. Moreover, the targets in the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions require the electrification and decarbonization of part of the production chains, which is opening up some excellent prospects for the coming decade.”

The company has now more than 400 employees. While its headquarters remain in France, it has established a strong presence in Japan and Turkey since 2015, the Netherlands since 2018, and is actively driving projects in around 10 other countries, including Germany, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Thailand. The company is committed to working with both clients and governments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Saving energy when operating infrastructures
Energy Pool brings its knowledge of the flexibility markets, as well as its experience in activating the industrial sites on those markets to the FlexRICAN project. This will allow to draw parallels between these electro-intensive industries and large research infrastructures, such as the high-field labs of the EMFL that are also consuming very large amounts of electricity, and improve the CO2 impact of these different users. In return, FlexRICAN opens up the opportunity to learn more about research infrastructures as potential suppliers of flexibility for the markets and to dig deeper into new markets outside of their actual scope.