Flex›Source - NorFlex Project (NODES, 2019-2023)

Source - NorFlex Project (NODES, 2019-2023)

Two NODES clippings on the NorFlex demonstration project (nodesmarket.com), grouped:

  1. “NorFlex project demonstrate integration to Statnett’s mFRR market” (Hallstein Hagen, 2022-01-11)
  2. “NorFlex — White paper updated with data from last year’s trading” (Hallstein Hagen, 2023-06-26) Language: English Source material: raw/Clippings/NorFlex project demonstrate integration to Statnett's mFRR market.md; raw/Clippings/NorFlex - White paper updated with data from last years trading.md

NorFlex is the predecessor to Norway’s current Euroflex local flexibility market — the NODES Norwegian demonstration project that ran ~2019/20–2023 and pioneered the simultaneous DSO + TSO (Statnett mFRR) use of local flexibility that Euroflex later productized as Armering. It explains the 2020–2023 Norwegian volumes visible on the NODES market dashboard.

Key facts

  • Project: Enova-funded innovation/demonstration project (one of eight large-scale demos). Partners: Agder Energi (project owner), Glitre Energi, NODES, Statnett (the Norwegian TSO).
  • Timeline: launched 2019. The Jan 2022 clipping states the project “runs from 2019 to the end of March 2022,” but the June 2023 white-paper update reports NorFlex “concluded its 4th year” — i.e. it continued through ~2023 (active roughly 2020–2023).
  • First DSO+TSO trade (6 Jan 2022): 3 MW of flexibility from the NODES marketplace transacted into Statnett’s mFRR market — the first of its kind, activating flexibility from greenhouses. Grid companies (Agder Energi Nett, Glitre Energi) had traded local flexibility on NODES through 2021; the final phase tested aggregating unbought local flexibility into Statnett’s mFRR (minimum 1 MW blocks, via a regulatory exception). NODES forwarded Statnett’s e-bestill activation signals because Statnett is “not set up to manage small bid volumes.”
  • Cumulative trading (to mid-2023, white paper): 1,394 MWh traded, representing >12 M NOK; >4,000 assets participated; smallest ShortFlex (activation) trade 1 kW, largest 5.4 MW; >30,000 activations demonstrated.
  • Aggregators: Ishavskraft, Noova, Entelios, Tibber, Istadkraft, Futurehome, Glitre Energi Strøm, Volue, True Energi, LOS — testing independent aggregation, which Norwegian regulation did not yet formally provide for.

Significance

  • Precursor to Euroflex + Armering: NorFlex pioneered offering local flexibility to both the local grid company and Statnett’s balancing market simultaneously. Euroflex’s Armering product (the contract is “armed” ~2 days ahead so capacity is withheld from Statnett only on days the DSO needs it) is the commercialized, productized version of this DSO+TSO value-stacking-without-double-activation mechanism. A concrete, working precedent for TSO-DSO Coordination — The Central Design Problem.
  • Why Norway read “0 commercial LFM” in the 2025-03 study: NorFlex was an Enova-funded demonstration project, not a commercial market — consistent with the Nordic Energy Research 2025-03 classification. Euroflex (from 2024/25) is the commercial successor.
  • Statnett small-bid problem: NorFlex confirms the TSO cannot operationally handle sub-MW bids directly; NODES aggregates local flexibility into ≥1 MW mFRR blocks and relays activation signals — the same architecture relevant to Sweden’s BSP aggregation and the paper-construction problem.

Note on source access

NODES’s full reports and white papers are not fully public — they must be requested via a web form on nodesmarket.com. The figures here are from the public news posts, not the underlying datasets; precise Euroflex/NorFlex levels remain partly gated.

Relevance to wiki