Build a renewables-linked grid curtailment profile for a German forecast run
Standardised Flexible Connection Agreements at DSO level increasingly tie a battery’s permitted import and export to the load factors of nearby wind and solar plants. The approach was pioneered by Schleswig-Holstein Netz and is appearing across the E.ON-owned DSOs - this article covers how these agreements affect battery revenues.
The tool below turns the reference plant locations in your agreement into a curtailment CSV the terminal can use. Enter the PV and wind coordinates, pick the operational boundaries that match the contract, optionally enable a night charging floor, set the site’s import and export limits in MW, and download the file. Upload it as the custom curtailment profile on the Grid connection tab when creating a forecast.
Operational boundary variants
For every 15-minute period, the builder chooses the higher of the two load factors (PV or wind), in line with the SH-Netz FCA. The resulting allowed operational limits for charge and discharge are then determined from the graph above. For load factors above a certain threshold, less and less discharging is allowed. For load factors below a certain threshold, less and less charging is allowed. Three presets for these thresholds are mentioned in the SH-Netz template:
| Variant | Full charging from | Full discharging up to | No discharge from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Variant 1 | 10% LF | 50% LF | 100% LF |
| Variant 2 | 20% LF | 40% LF | 80% LF |
| Variant 3 | 30% LF | 30% LF | 60% LF |
Between those thresholds the limits ramp linearly. Custom lets you set the three percentages yourself. The optional night window raises the import limit to a minimum overnight (23:00–05:00 Europe/Berlin) when the renewable signal would otherwise allow less charging.
Locations and reference assets
The tool snaps each entered coordinate to the nearest node on a 0.25° grid covering Germany — about 860 locations — so the profile you download is never more than roughly 20 km from the location you typed. Wind and PV can snap to different nodes when the plants are not co-located.
Load-factor profiles are hourly MERRA-2 weather for 2018, fetched from renewables.ninja, then mapped onto the 2026 calendar at 15-minute resolution. Times are written in UTC as this is what the terminal expects, but the night window is applied at Berlin time. The reference assets used for every node are:
| Technology | Spec |
|---|---|
| PV | Fixed tilt 35°, facing south (azimuth 180°), 10% system loss |
| Wind | Enercon E126 7.5 MW, 120 m hub height |
Those settings reproduce the original SH-Netz reference profiles used in the research linked above.
How to use the CSV in a forecast
- Download the file from the tool.
- On the terminal, open the Grid connection tab of a German forecast.
- Upload the CSV as the custom curtailment profile.
- Run the forecast. The model holds export and import within the profile in every period.
For the broader FCA settings that sit alongside a curtailment file — ramp time and ancillary service restrictions — see Flexible Connection Agreements.
Related Pages
- Flexible Connection Agreements – How FCAs are entered and applied in a German forecast
- Dispatch Model – How the model optimizes battery dispatch across German markets
- Revenue Stack – Overview of available revenue streams in Germany