The European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has launched today a public consultation to decide on the rules for cross-border participation in capacity mechanisms. These rules enable electricity providers to directly contribute with their resources to security of electricity supply in other European Member States, and to receive payments for their contributions.
Mandated by the Clean Energy Package, these rules reflect the benefits of having a truly integrated and pan-European energy market, where electricity resources can be shared between the countries in the most efficient manner, regardless of their location.
The rules, developed by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) pursuant to Article 26(11) of recast Electricity Regulation and submitted to ACER for approval, consist of:
- a methodology for calculating the maximum entry capacity available for cross-border participation in capacity mechanisms. This will define the overall volume of foreign electricity that a country could avail of in meeting its future electricity needs,
- a methodology for sharing the revenues from selling entry capacity to electricity providers,
- rules for checking whether electricity providers are available when they are needed by another country,
- rules for determining when electricity providers are subject to penalties,
- rules for a registry which would include data on all electricity providers which intend to participate in capacity mechanisms in other countries, and
- rules to determine the conditions that electricity providers would need to meet in order to be placed on the registry.
To inform our decision, ACER seeks views from all the interested parties during a four-week public consultation, until 9 August 2020.
Access the 
consultation.
Read ACER's Public Notice informing about the initiation of this procedure.