How Eneco is realizing their vision for a residential VPP offering with Enode
Eneco is an international energy company serving millions of residential customers across the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. With sustainability at the core of their mission, they are already a market leader in virtual power plant (VPP) capabilities, operating large-scale assets like wind farms, solar parks, and commercial batteries.
Now, with the rapid growth of residential distributed energy resources (DERs) – the EV market alone is set to double in the Netherlands and Belgium by 2029 – Eneco is preparing to extend their VPP to the home. Their goal: empower consumers to better manage their energy use, contribute to grid stability, and offer possibilities to lower their energy bills.
“Residential distributed energy resources represent a transformative opportunity for energy suppliers”, said Enode CEO and co-founder Henrik Langeland. “By connecting consumer devices, Eneco is empowering homeowners to become active participants in the energy transition while creating a more resilient and sustainable grid.”
To help unlock this opportunity, Eneco partnered with Enode.
Challenge: connecting to a wide range of residential devices
Building a scalable residential VPP requires reliable access to a broad range of DERs across different device types, brands, and models. Creating and maintaining these connections in-house can be a time-consuming and high-risk endeavor.
Eneco needed a partner that could deliver the device coverage they required without compromising their control over the final offering.
Solution: partnering for connectivity while retaining control
By partnering with Enode, Eneco gained immediate access to more than 1000 devices across 80+ brands through a single API. This gave them the connectivity foundation needed to scale, while retaining full ownership of their VPP asset operations, user experience, and product roadmap.
Beyond connectivity, Enode supported Eneco hands-on across business case design, UX development, technical integration, and troubleshooting – helping accelerate time-to-market without steering or limiting Eneco’s vision.
“Partnering with Enode has significantly accelerated our time to market, allowing us to bring innovative solutions to our customers,” said Sten Kamerling, Innovator at Eneco. “Their experience running flexibility programs with large-scale utilities helped us move faster and apply best practices across the development of our new offering.”
Result: launching smart EV charging across Dutch and Belgian markets
The first milestone of the partnership is a new EV smart charging product, now available for Eneco customers on fixed and dynamic hourly tariffs in the Netherlands and Belgium. The offering optimizes charging based on wholesale and imbalance market prices, as well as rooftop solar production – making it easier, cheaper, and greener for customers to charge at home. Consumers can expect to save up to €300 per year, depending on their tariff and charging behavior.
Eneco’s goal is to bring this solution to over 60,000 EV drivers across Europe, starting with Eneco eMobility charge point users and their broader base of retail energy customers.
Building on this foundation, Eneco is already planning to expand into other residential assets like heat pumps and batteries.
With the European battery market quadrupling, net metering being phased out in the Netherlands, and smart meters rolling out across Belgium, Eneco is moving fast to support consumers with smart tools they need to manage their energy consumption the best way possible in a changing energy landscape.
“Enode has been instrumental in helping Eneco accelerate our VPP strategy. Their platform gave us the technical foundation to scale quickly in the residential segment, and their team’s expertise and collaboration have made them a true strategic partner. The impact of our partnership is visible not only in our products, but across our broader digital transformation efforts,” said Vincent Tuk, Chief Digital Officer at Eneco.
