Enel Green Power is optimising the planning and dispatching processes for its hydropower plants in the Lombardian valley Valmalenco with software from Powel.

The software enables Enel Green Power to react nearly in real-time to balancing orders, relevant changes in the availability of power plants, weather data, and inflow observations for the entire valley.

“With Powel’s software, we enable our dispatchers to forecast inflows accurately, and to use our precious water resources in an optimal way, thus increasing revenues and reducing imbalance costs significantly,” said Matteo Bossi, head of the regional dispatching center in Sondrio.

Since 2018, Enel Green Power has productively used Powel’s software in the regional dispatching center in Sondrio in Northern Italy. Powel’s solutions have been used for the whole business process related to the production planning and dispatch of the hydropower plants in Valmalenco. These hydropower plants produce around 700GWh annually and are bid to the market as an aggregated production unit. This means that nearly in real-time Enel Green Power optimises the overall production schedule of the power plants in the entire valley.

Due to their high degree of flexibility, Enel Green Power’s power plants in Valmalenco are of strategic importance in Enel’s overall power plant portfolio in Italy, with an annual production of around 60 TWh.

“The cooperation with Powel started with a test of Powel’s solution in Valmalenco in 2018 and we were impressed by the result,” explained Davide Passuello, project manager for the Powel software implementation at Enel Green Power O&M Hydro Italy. “The Valmalenco installation has been running 24/7 automatically for the last two years and we are now implementing Powel’s software to cover the O&M production planning and dispatch processes for our entire hydropower portfolio.”

“The Valmalenco implementation is a very good example for Powel’s focus on automation,” said Camilla Thorrud Larsen, head of Solution Strategy in Powel’s Smart Energy division. “This project confirms our ability to implement our innovative software in short time, which satisfies concrete business needs and creates high value for our clients. For most of them, automation of critical business processes is a key factor for success.”