Osborne Clarke advises Flexa GmbH on the establishment of the first virtual power plant for household customers in Germany

Joint venture between Enpal and Entrix is to enable the construction of Europe's largest virtual power plant as a flagship project for the energy transition

Osborne Clarke has advised Flexa GmbH on the establishment of a virtual power plant regarding contractual and corporate law, regulatory issues and data protection and copyright in connection with algorithms and AI models. The advice dealt with the planned establishment of Europe's largest virtual power plant, which encompasses the flexibility of PV systems, home storage systems, heat pumps and wallboxes. The joint venture consists of Enpal B.V., the largest B2C provider of solar systems and home storage systems, and Entrix GmbH, a fast-growing flexibility marketing company.

A virtual power plant is an aggregation of decentralised electricity generation units, such as photovoltaic systems or battery storage units, to form a system that can be marketed as aggregated power on the electricity exchanges. The virtual power plant managed by Flexa is a flagship project for the digitalisation and decarbonisation of the energy sector. The idea of combining the electricity consumption flexibility of many household customers into a virtual power plant and marketing it en bloc on the electricity wholesale markets and as ancillary services has so far only been implemented as part of pilot projects. Flexa intends to market a capacity of several gigawatts of electricity in a few years' time and thus contribute to more favourable electricity prices and a more sustainable energy supply. 

The Osborne Clarke team advising Flexa GmbH was led by Anna von Bremen (Energy Law) and consisted of Nikolas Klausmann (Energy Law), Adrian Schneider and Lucie Fassbender (both IT Law), Maximilian Vocke, Dr Paul Rhode, Dana Alpar (all Corporate / M&A) and Robert Briske (IP Law). Enpal B.V. was represented by Dr Norman Koschmieder (General Counsel), Dr Sara Brinkmann (Director Commercial Law & Contracts) and Dr Manuel Holzmann (Head of Corporate & Finance Law). They were supported in data protection by Sebastian Pommerenke (Group Data Protection Officer Enpal B.V.). Entrix GmbH was advised by the General Counsel of Pelion Green Future GmbH, Christoph Herig.