NEBCO: buying energy on the markets with no extra TURPE or taxes

Break-even resale price for 1 MWh bought at €50/MWh: €56/MWh with NEBCO, versus €160/MWh without NEBCO for a household and €104/MWh for a business.

NEBCO: buying energy on the markets with no extra TURPE or taxes

The NEBCO mechanism (France’s demand-response block exchange mechanism) lets a behind-the-meter (BTM) battery take positions on the energy markets on particularly favourable terms.

By taking part in NEBCO, the battery simply shifts the site’s withdrawal from the grid, without changing how the site uses electricity:

It charges to buy when the market price is low: the site withdraws more.
It discharges later to sell when the price is high: the site withdraws less.

Over a calendar month, upward and downward modulation volumes must balance out. The site’s total withdrawal therefore stays almost unchanged, despite the positions taken on the markets.

The economic appeal of NEBCO is that the battery can buy energy on the markets without paying TURPE (the French grid usage tariff) or any extra taxes on top of the supply cost.

Conversely, a battery that cannot shift existing consumption adds its charging directly to the site’s withdrawal. The energy it buys then carries the supply cost, TURPE and taxes.

For a battery with 90% round-trip efficiency buying energy at €50/MWh:

Household: break-even selling price of around €56/MWh with NEBCO, versus €160/MWh without NEBCO.
Business: break-even selling price of around €56/MWh with NEBCO, versus €104/MWh without NEBCO.

NEBCO therefore makes it possible to take far more attractive positions on the markets, without changing the site’s supply contract or its consumption.

There is one limitation, however: a NEBCO schedule currently has to be declared at least one hour before the period concerned.

The battery therefore cannot capture every opportunity that appears close to real time on the intraday market. To fully exploit those movements, the site’s supply contract has to be changed.

At Nexen GridTech, we are building the control and aggregation that allow behind-the-meter batteries to monetise these withdrawal shifts on the markets.

Do you install batteries? Get in touch to explore what NEBCO could bring them.