The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and its National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) publish today a practical note on how to monitor the capacity available for cross-zonal electricity trade in a harmonised way, in view of the minimum 70% target.

What is the minimum 70% target?

The Clean Energy Package has set a binding minimum 70% target for electricity interconnector capacity to be available for cross-zonal trading (the “minimum 70% target”).

It applies since 1 January 2020 and requires Transmission System Operators (TSOs) to offer 70% of their capacity available for cross-zonal trading. Member States may adopt transitory measures to reach the target gradually by the end of 2025.

Maximising cross-zonal trading opportunities is key to ensure an efficient internal electricity market.

What is the purpose of this note?

ACER and the NRAs jointly developed a common approach to monitor the margin available for cross-zonal trade. The note aims to:

• align as much as possible the principles used to monitor cross-zonal capacity across the EU,

• provide more transparency to market participants on how NRAs will assess compliance with the minimum 70% target. The note also details the list of deviations from the common approach in specific Member States.

Read more on the practical note.

Access the past editions of ACER’s reports monitoring the 70% minimum target.

Europe’s energy regulators, represented by the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), welcome the European Commission’s Strategy to harness the potential of offshore renewable energy for a climate-neutral future. 

In their Reflection Paper, ACER and CEER broadly support the European Commission’s envisaged approach towards creating offshore bidding zones (OBZs) to integrate offshore renewable energy from hybrid systems into the EU electricity market. At the same time, ACER and CEER believe further consideration would be beneficial for the implementation of the offshore bidding zone model.

There remain several challenges, among which is the need to provide a stable investment framework for offshore renewables. ACER and CEER have concerns about the proposal to allocate congestion income to offshore renewable energy sources, or to exempt hybrid interconnectors from the requirement to make 70% of capacity available for cross-zonal trading. ACER and CEER caution that not abiding by the 70% rule implies re-introducing priority dispatch. This in turn would unduly favour offshore over onshore generation, distort competition and potentially prevent the cheapest electricity from reaching consumers.

ACER and CEER advocate refraining from exemptions from the general EU energy market rules. Instead, regulators propose less disruptive solutions such as market-oriented support schemes and/or seeking higher guarantees in terms of interconnection capacity availability. In addition, ACER and CEER fully support integrated network development and planning for offshore networks, as well as harmonisation of connection and operation rules to facilitate the deployment of hybrid systems.

Read more on the ACER-CEER Reflection Paper.

For a shorter reading, you can also access the accompanying Cover Note.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) adopted a Decision defining the System Operation Regions (SORs). This Decision is part of the implementation of the Regulation on the internal market for electricity and the Clean Energy Package.

Why is the definition of System Operation Regions (SORs) relevant?

The definition of the System Operation Regions (SORs) represents the first step towards the establishment of Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs). RCCs will ensure an enhanced institutional framework for a higher level of coordination between Transmission System Operators (TSOs) at regional level, as well as reinforce system security and market efficiency.

The decision published today replaces ACER Decision No 10/2020, by which ACER had amended and approved the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E)’s proposal of 6 January 2020.

With this Decision, ACER added further reasoning to its amendments and revised the definition of SORs, taking into consideration the impact of UK’s withdrawal from the EU. ACER also decided to maintain the South-West Europe as a separate SOR, as proposed by ENTSO-E.  

Access ACER's Decision 05/2022.

ACER’s report on national gas storage regulations provides an overview of the current national gas storage regulations. This report is relevant in the context of the current discussions on new policies for filling storages next winter.

The importance of gas storage

The European Commission’s REPowerEU communication (March 2022) highlights the need to be prepared for a possible interruption of gas supply. Gas storage plays an important role for ensuring continuity of gas supply. More recently, the Commission has tabled a legislative proposal introducing a minimum of 80% gas storage level obligation by 1 November for next winter, rising to 90% for the following years. EU leaders are expected to discuss and decide soon on the approach to refill Europe’s storage facilities.

The ACER report sets out the current storage situation across the EU and is based on information provided by its members, the national regulatory authorities (NRAs).

What are the main findings of the ACER gas storage report?

1. Facts on storage: the EU-27 storage capacity represents around 27% of the annual gas consumption of the European Union. 18 Member States have gas storage facilities. The remaining 9 Member States without storage represent less than 5% of the European annual gas consumption. More than 80% of the EU storage capacity consists of aquifers and depleted fields, which are primarily used for seasonal gas storage. The number and capacity of storage sites as well as the number of storage operators varies across the countries.

Type of storage regulation varies across Member States. 11 Member States have opted for regulated third-party access rules and regulated tariffs, while in 7 Member States, access to storage is negotiated between users and operators according to transparent and non-discriminatory rules. Slightly more than half of the gas storage capacity falls under a negotiated regime while the remaining falls under a regulated regime. NRAs have provided a description of national storage regulation, focusing on key regulatory aspects, roles and responsibilities.

2. Book and usage of storage: On 1st October 2021, the booked storage capacity in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia was significantly above actual used capacity due to low filling levels of storages used or controlled by Gazprom. Some Member States apply use-it-or-lose-it (UIOLI) rules to release booked but not used storage capacity; a measure that could be applied in all Member States.

3. Gas in storage obligations: 11 Member States have some type of storage obligations, including: capacity booking obligations, filling obligations for gas suppliers, strategic storage and regulatory limitations in the usage of storage under some conditions. In 7 Member States, there are no storage obligations at all.

4. Monitoring and compliance with storage obligations. Storage operators regularly monitor storage filling levels. For all regulated storages and most of non-regulated storages, monitoring data is regularly reported to authorities (Ministries, NRAs) and in some instances to oil and gas national stockpiling associations. When storage obligations are applicable, there are different models to address non-compliance: use-it-or-loose-it (UIOLI) regime whereby booked but not used storage capacity is offered on the secondary market, fines or a possibility to suspend licenses and contracts.

5. Different storage tariffs and capacity products. Different tariff and access to storage regimes coexist (11 Member States have regulated tariffs, 7 negotiated).  The same applies to the availability of storage capacity products, which can range from a single standard bundled product to up to six different products. Ten Member States offer three or more types of capacity products. Storage tariffs are public in most of the cases.

6. Assessment of storage and national plans to establish storage obligations. NRAs have increased the vigilance over gas storage this past winter. The main current concern is the filling of gas storages for the upcoming winter. Member States with a regulated regime for storage (e.g. Belgium, France, Italy, Poland and Spain) have a positive assessment of their national systems and note an adequate storage filling level at the start of past winter season. Austria, the Netherlands and Germany have announced plans to consider establishing some type of storage obligations. The war in Ukraine has accelerated the discussions on revising or introducing strengthened gas storage regulations.

7. Validation of data provided by storage operators to ENTSOG and GIE AGSI+ Platform. Most NRAs report no or minor differences on the data provided by storage operators. As data is not always final and complete in the AGSI+ platform, it is recommendable to establish a more rapid process for validating the final storage values as well as an obligation of storage operators to report to AGSI+.

Would you like to find out more? Detailed country information is available in the report.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) launches today a public consultation on how to address the insufficient risk hedging opportunities on the bidding zone borders between Finland and Sweden. In its upcoming decision, ACER can request the relevant Transmission System Operators either to issue long-term transmission rights or to ensure the availability of other long-term cross-zonal hedging products that support the functioning of the wholesale electricity markets.

All interested parties are invited to share their views by 3 May 2022, 23:59 hrs (CET).

Why is this important?

An assessment performed by the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) indicated insufficient hedging opportunities in the Finnish bidding zone. Contributions to this public consultation will help ACER in taking an informed decision on how to improve the cross-zonal hedging opportunities on the bidding zone borders between Finland and Sweden for the benefit of market participants.

ACER’s decision will promote long-term cross-zonal trade by improving the availability of long-term cross-zonal risk hedging opportunities.

Access the Public Consultation.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators has decided on the Regional Coordination Centre (RCC) post-operation and post-disturbances analysis and reporting methodology.

What are the Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs)?

The Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs) are established by the Electricity Regulation and replace the regional security coordinators (RSCs) foreseen by the System Operation Guideline. RCCs cover the tasks carried out by RSCs as well as additional system operation, market related and risk preparedness tasks.

Their tasks include: 

• supporting the consistency assessment of transmission system operators' defence and restoration plans,

• carrying out regional outage planning coordination,

• carrying out post-operation and post-disturbances analysis, and

• training and certification of staff working for RCCs.

In performing their tasks, RCCs contribute to the achievement of the 2030 and 2050 objectives set by the climate and energy policy frameworks (particularly in relation to fostering security of supply and efficiency, as well as increasing the electrification of the energy sector).

Given the entering into force of operation of RCCs this year, ACER needs to adopt various methodologies related to their different tasks.

What is the methodology about?

In particular, the Regional Coordination Centre post-operation and post-disturbances analysis and reporting methodology was adopted by ACER following the assessment of the proposal submitted by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) to ACER in January 2022.

This methodology:

• prescribes the preconditions for launching the RCC investigation,

• explains the data collection process,

• sets the work of the expert panel and the RCC investigation subgroup (which analyses the incidents related to the RCC tasks), and

• guides the RCCs in preparing the post-disturbances reports.

How did ACER contribute?

ACER reviewed ENTSO-E’s proposal and ensured that the decision is in line with the objectives of the Electricity Regulation and fulfils its legal obligations.

Access ACER’s Decision 04-2022.

Following a five-month consultation with stakeholders aimed at improving REMIT data reporting, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes today the updated Transaction Reporting User Manual (TRUM) and its Annex II.

The amendments provide guidance on the reporting of transactions related to the transportation of natural gas, which need to be reported to ACER according to the REMIT Implementing Regulation.

The updated guidance aims to:

• update and clarify the data field descriptions related to gas transportation contracts,

• clarify and ensure consistency on the reporting of gas transportation contracts,

• include new examples of transaction reporting based on ACER’s analysis and the interaction with National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) and stakeholders.

The consultation included input from different stakeholders, including associations of market participants, organised market places, and registered reporting mechanisms.

Access the new version of the Transaction Reporting User Manual and its Annex II.

ACER also provides the updated 13th edition of the FAQs on REMIT transaction reporting. Intended to foster clarity and simplify cooperation with reporting parties, the new edition of the FAQs includes new frequently asked questions to better reflect the evolution of the trading activity on EU markets. Facilitating the correct reporting of data is key to ensure the integrity and transparency of the markets.

Access the new version of the FAQs on transaction reporting.

In addition, ACER has also published the 27th edition of the Q&As on REMIT policy, which introduces three new Q&As coordinated with the relevant NRAs. The new edition clarifies the application of REMIT when dealing with the disclosure of inside information, guarantees of origin, and renewable energy aggregators.

Access the new edition of the Q&As on REMIT policy topics.

All documents are accessible via the new REMIT Knowledge Base, which is now available and fully integrated with the ACER website.

• No major damage to the power system but some customers were disconnected

• Avoiding tripping of generation connected to distribution systems is essential to maintaining system security

The Expert Panel composed of ENTSO-E and the relevant Transmission System Operators (TSOs) as well as ACER and relevant National Regulatory Authority (NRA) representatives publish their Final Report on an incident which separated on 24 July 2021 for about an hour the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of the Continental Europe power system.

In view of the customer disconnections, the incident was ranked level two according to the ICS Methodology and an expert panel was set up on 22 October 2021 to carry out an investigation.

Today, after several months of intensive and close collaboration of all parties involved, the expert panel issues its final report. It provides a comprehensive analytical overview of the incident – the causes and the consequences - and proposes recommendations to prevent and mitigate the consequences of similar events in the future.

The Expert Panel’s analysis concludes that this incident was atypical in that it resulted from the failure of an efficient and suitable communication channel between the emergency services and the TSO. It did not originate from any faults in system operation or planning. The system defence plans functioned properly and coordinated measures were activated quickly.

Avoiding tripping of generation connected to distribution systems is essential to maintaining system security

The incident revealed that the limits of stable system operation can be reached, even if all security evaluations are executed correctly and timely. With the increase in distributed generation connected to the grid to achieve the de-carbonisation of the energy system, non-compliance with the technical requirements of the binding EU network codes may generate uncontrollable and unmanageable breaches of the security of the electricity system.

Key Recommendations

The expert panel makes several recommendations and in particular,

• One key recommendation is that that NRAs, TSOs, Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and owners of distributed generation units work together to ensure that the mandatory system security requirements are implemented and monitored for their compliance. The Expert Panel recommends that this issue is addressed at the European level.

• A second key recommendation is for TSOs to continuously develop and improve their environmental risk identification and mitigation processes to be prepared for a potential increase in their occurrence due to the effects of climate change.

The Expert Panel calls for ENTSO-E/TSOs and ACER/national regulators to follow up on the implementation of these recommendations to prevent and mitigate the consequences of similar incidents in the future.

Related links:

Executive summary

Main report

Annexes

Notes:

Press contact for ENTSO-E: claire.camus(at)entsoe.eu; T: 0032 476 97 50 93.

Press contact for ACER: una.shortall(at)acer.europea.eu; T: 0032 484 66 85 99.