The Expert Panel composed of ENTSO-E, Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne S.A. (PSE, the Polish Transmission System Operator (TSO)), ACER and relevant National Regulatory Authority (NRA) representatives publish their Final Report on the Local Grid Incident in Rogowiec (Poland) substation that occurred on 17 May 2021, issued in accordance with the System Operation Guideline (SO GL) and the Incident Classification Scale (ICS) Methodology.

The report is published on the ENTSO-E website.

The incident – classified as a scale 2 incident according to the ICS Methodology – led to the tripping of ten generation units of the Bełchatów power plant and to a loss of 3,322 MW of generation capacity. The cause of the incident was a human error. Incorrect manipulation of the line earthing switch led to a short circuit in the 400 kV Rogowiec switchyard.

Thanks to the swift remedial actions taken by PSE, as well as the emergency support from neighbouring TSOs and cooperation with the coordination centre, the power system was operating within the security limits for approximately 20 minutes. The market continued to function according to the standard procedures in all timeframes. No consumer was disconnected and there was no negative impact on the operation of the synchronously interconnected power system of Continental Europe.

Following the investigation, the Expert Panel presents its report which includes a few recommendations.

Recommendations of the Expert Panel

1. In substations where a large-scale incident can lead to more than 3000 MW of generation lost, the TSO shall:

• Possess a document showing the compliance of the grounding circuits to technical requirements coming from the tests done during the commissioning of the substation, or

• Possess a document showing the compliance of the grounding circuits to technical requirements coming from the tests done after any substantial modifications of the grounding circuits, or

• Measure and check the compliance of the grounding circuits to technical requirements in case documents mentioned in paragraphs a. and b. are not available.

2. In order to guarantee a better resilience, in the relevant substations and double lines of the network which can cause at least scale 2 incident according to ICS methodology, have a dedicated reinforced maintenance of these structures.

Notes

1. Incident Classification Scale. The ICS Methodology has been developed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2019/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2019. It was updated in 2019, to fulfil the objectives of Article 15 of SO GL quoted above.

2. Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1485 of 2 August 2017 establishing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation (System Operation Guideline, SO GL).

• Energy regulators offer support in the emergency situation in Ukraine, and today’s successful power grid synchronisation with Continental Europe

• Regulators work to ensure stability of the European energy system and in particular in the Member States adjacent to Ukraine

Europe’s energy regulators represented by their EU Agency, ACER, and the national regulators’ association, CEER, offer support to the massive efforts to address the emergency situation in Ukraine to ensure uninterrupted and safe energy supply. Today, the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) of Continental Europe completed the emergency synchronisation of the Ukrainian and Moldovan power grids with Continental Europe (see the ENTSO-E press release).

ACER and CEER offer support to the regulator of Ukraine and those of the bordering countries, that is Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, so that they can react quickly to upcoming needs. Already some measures have been taken by regulators and others to ensure firm reverse flow capacities into Ukraine so that they can continue to receive gas from the EU. ACER and CEER recognise the work of the Energy Community colleagues in coordinating regulatory support to Ukraine and we in turn offer our support and services to the Energy Community.

Regulators remain committed, in close coordination with EU policy makers and TSOs, to ensure security of energy supply in Europe in the coming period.

Commenting on the situation, the ACER Director, Christian Zinglersen, stated:

“We applaud the round-the-clock efforts of the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) of the Regional Group Continental Europe (RGCE), ENTSO-E, ENTSOG, Ministries, the European Commission, the Energy Community, regulators, industry and others who are working tirelessly to help the Ukrainian TSO and regulator to power and warm homes and hospitals in Ukraine in these difficult times”.

On the diverse CEER support for Ukraine, the CEER President, Annegret Groebel, added:

“CEER represents 39 European national regulatory authorities for energy. We are all united in sympathy for the suffering of the Ukrainian people and our concern for colleagues in the National Energy and Utilities Regulatory Commission (NEURC) of Ukraine. We stand in solidarity with Ukraine.”

Access ACER-CEER Press Release.

The National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) for energy from Finland and Sweden asked the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) to decide on how to address the insufficient risk hedging opportunities on the bidding zone borders between Finland and Sweden.

An assessment performed by the NRAs indicated insufficient hedging opportunities in the Finnish bidding zone. To improve this, NRAs can either request their Transmission System Operators to issue long-term transmission rights or ensure the availability of other long-term cross-zonal hedging products that can support the functioning of the wholesale electricity markets.

As the NRAs could not reach an agreement, they referred the decision to ACER.

What are the consequences of insufficient risk hedging opportunities?

Hedging opportunities are needed for market participants to address their risk exposure to the volatility of the electricity price. Not being able to address such exposure would result in societal costs (e.g. higher costs of supply, higher premiums, less competition, entry barriers, higher risk of default).

The long-term electricity markets should provide market participants with access to long-term electricity products, allowing them to hedge their open long-term position for electricity. If the long-term electricity markets are not able to provide this, they should be supported by a regulatory intervention.

How does ACER contribute?

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

ACER will open a public consultation for four weeks in early April and invite interested stakeholders to submit their inputs. As a next step, ACER will organise a public workshop around mid-April.

In doing so, ACER aims at collecting different views to inform its decision–making process.

A decision will be reached by 12th September 2022.

Read more on the Public Notice.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes today an opinion providing guidance to the national regulatory authorities (NRAs) on the implementation of electricity long-term transmission rights on the Finnish-Estonian bidding zone border.

What are the long-term transmission rights?

Long-term transmission rights are issued by TSOs and based on their available cross-zonal capacities. They provide cross-zonal trading opportunities for the forward time frames (e.g. month ahead, year ahead) and are issued to improve hedging opportunities where the long-term electricity market cannot provide these sufficiently on its own. Long-term transmission rights can be issued as physical or financial transmission rights, as options or obligations.

What are the main elements of ACER’s opinion?

The opinion clarifies open questions related to the approval process of terms and conditions or methodologies and clarifies requirements on the splitting of long-term cross-zonal capacity.

These clarifications are instrumental for Transmission System Operators (TSOs) on the Finnish-Estonian bidding zone border to start issuing long-term transmission rights.

ACER’s guidance facilitates the implementation of the Finnish and Estonian regulatory authorities’ decision on issuing long-term transmission rights on the relevant bidding zone border. The regulatory authorities based their decision on an assessment showing insufficient hedging opportunities for market participants of the Baltic member states. The aim of ACER’s guidance is for market participants to have access to needed hedging opportunities as soon as possible. 

Read more on ACER’s Opinion.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has decided on the proposal by all Transmission System Operators (TSOs) to amend the common methodology for the pricing of balancing energy and cross-border capacity used for the exchange across the European electricity markets.

In particular, the amendment proposed is related to the technical price limit in the balancing timeframe.

The proposal was submitted to ACER in August 2021.

What are the benefits?

The methodology provides the common rules at European level for an efficient pricing of balancing energy, resulting from:

• balancing energy bids activation
• cross-border capacity used for the exchange of balancing energy.

What are the main elements of ACER’s decision?

ACER amended the TSOs’ proposal and included a transitory price limit of 15,000 €/MWh for the first 4 years of the European balancing platforms’ operations, until July 2026.

ACER understands that efficient market functioning is based on free price formation. As such, the technical price limit of 99,999 €/MWh (see ACER Decision 01/2020) has not changed.

The transitional price limit provides a safeguard for the first years of the European balancing platforms’ operations. This is a temporary measure for mitigating the possible risks of the initial phase of the European balancing platforms’ go-live and to allow TSOs and market participants to gather experience on their functioning. 

TSOs are also requested to closely follow the developments on the European platforms and report to ACER and national regulatory authorities, whenever needed.  

How did ACER contribute?

ACER has ensured that the decision is in line with the objectives of the Electricity Balancing Regulation and fulfils its legal obligations (Article 30(2)), as well as with those of the Regulation on the internal market for electricity.

In its decision, ACER also details the functioning of the European target model for the balancing markets and how this design facilitates the efficient functioning of the European internal electricity markets.

Access the ACER Decision 03/2022.

On 18 February 2022, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) received a proposal from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) regarding the methodology for training and certification of staff working for Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs).

The Electricity Regulation lists the RCCs’ tasks and their roles. Among those tasks, the Regulation mandates the obligation related to the training and certification of its staff. The proposed methodology provides definitions and sets out the RCC training and certification process.

What are the next steps?

ACER will reach a decision on the proposal by 18 May 2022.

In order to inform its assessment, ACER invites interested third parties to submit their observations by 11 March 2022 to ACER-ELE-2022-004(at)acer.europa.eu.

Access the ACER Public Notice.

Access the ENTSO-E proposal and its explanatory document.

In November 2021, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) received a proposal from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) for the first pan-European resource adequacy assessment (ERAA 2021). The purpose of the assessment is to monitor the risks to Europe’s security of electricity supply and identify adequacy concerns.

​​​Following the approval by ACER of the ERAA methodology in October 2020, ENTSO-E must carry out an annual ERAA to assess whether the EU has sufficient electricity resources to meet its future demand. ERAA describes the expected level of security of supply for a ten-year horizon. A resource adequacy concern means that the expected level of risk is higher than the acceptable risk level, as defined by a Member State’s reliability standard.

In the ACER Decision published today, ACER decided to neither approve nor amend the ERAA 2021.

ERAA 2021 was not approved by ACER

While the ERAA 2021 represents a significant improvement to its predecessor (the Mid-Term Adequacy Forecast 2020), ACER has identified a number of shortcomings in the report, compromising its accuracy and reliability. ACER finds that the ERAA 2021, among other issues,

• underestimates the level of profits that resources (e.g. generation and demand-side response) could make in the market;

• underestimates the volume of capacity available for cross-zonal trade; and

• does not recognise the value of demand-side response sufficiently.

ACER considers that:

1. these shortcomings undermine the very purpose of the ERAA 2021 in providing an objective basis for identifying the risks to European security of electricity supply as envisaged in the Clean Energy Package; and

2. the ERAA 2021 overestimates resource adequacy concerns and could lead to incorrect policy decisions with negative implications for the integration of the electricity market and higher costs to consumers.

ERAA 2021 was not amended by ACER

ACER considered amending the ERAA 2021 and concluded that it would not be feasible within the required 3-month decision-making timeframe. An amended ERAA 2021 would have limited value for identifying resource adequacy concerns, essentially for 2025 only, and be based on outdated data. Furthermore, amending the ERAA 2021 would compromise the delivery of a significantly more ambitious ERAA 2022.

The ACER decision provides recommendations for the ERAA 2022, mainly concerning the scenarios, methodology and the assumptions of the assessment (e.g. reflect the EU’s Fit for 55 proposals), and the need for extensive stakeholder engagement. The aim is to help ENTSO-E in preparing the 2022 report to mitigate the risk of similar shortcomings occurring next year and to ensure that the annual ERAAs progressively align with the requirements of the agreed methodology.

Read more on ACER’s Decision No 02/2022.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes today an overview of European Gas Wholesale Markets trends in 2021, as an early publication of its annual Market Monitoring Report (MMR).

The MMR presents the results of monitoring the European internal electricity and gas markets and recommends further actions to foster their integration, as well as providing guidance and evidence on how energy markets can perform more efficiently.

In 2022, the MMR will comprise two volumes: one analysing the Gas Wholesale Markets, and the other analysing the Energy Retail Markets and Consumer Protection with expected publications dates of Q3 (July) and Q4 (September) respectively.

What are the main monitoring trends in wholesale gas markets in 2021?

• EU gas demand increased, primarily driven by the economic recovery. However, the record-high gas prices led to some gas-to-coal switching for power generation resulting in a drop in gas consumption for power generation.

Explore the evolution of total gas demand and the link with demand for power generation in individual Member States over the last few years in the interactive gas markets dashboard.

• Meanwhile, gas supply did not keep pace with the increase in demand. Domestic gas production in the EU and United Kingdom continued to decline and European liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports dropped, with modest pipeline supply. In the years to come, LNG will likely play an increasingly relevant role in the European gas supply portfolio.

Investigate the evolution of gas supply per origin and the evolution of European LNG imports over the last few years.

• Limited gas supply led to a higher reliance on underground storage stocks, which reached historically low levels because of higher withdrawals and lower injections.

You can compare underground storage levels over the last few years in our interactive dashboard.

• Wholesale gas prices rose sharply in all countries, but to different degrees. Nevertheless, the strong hub price convergence that was already achieved was not overturned.

Track the development of spot gas prices and price convergence over the last few years.

For the full overview, access the analysis on key Gas Wholesale Markets developments.

What were the main monitoring trends in the Electricity Wholesale Markets in 2021? Find out more.

Deepen your insights (e.g. by country and/or time frame) by exploring our interactive dashboard of dynamic charts of market and trading data.

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) publishes today an overview of charts and insights on the main developments of the Electricity Wholesale Markets, as an early publication of its annual Market Monitoring Report (MMR).

The MMR presents the main results of monitoring the European internal electricity and gas markets and recommends further actions to foster their integration, as well as providing guidance and evidence on how energy markets can perform more efficiently.

It normally comprises three volumes analysing respectively: the Electricity Wholesale Market, the Gas Wholesale Market, and the Energy Retail Market and Consumer Protection. 

In 2022, unlike previous years, ACER will not publish a single report gathering all monitored aspects of the Wholesale Electricity Markets in 2021 but a series of brief overviews. This overview is the first of these publications.

What are the main monitoring trends in wholesale electricity markets in 2021?

• Recovery of the electricity demand was driven by the economic recovery. This led to a series of changes in generation technologies. Coal was more used compared to 2020 to meet increased demand. As a result, generation from fossil fuels did not decrease in 2021.

Check the evolution of generation from renewable energy sources compared to fossil fuels by selecting the years 2020 and 2021 in our interactive dashboard.

Generation from renewables was above fossil fuels for the second year in a row and new renewables installed capacity kept on increasing, contributing to the energy transition.

In our dashboard, select the years 2016 - 2021, and see how the installed capacity from renewable and conventional generation technologies has changed over the years.

• A sharp increase in coal generation took place due to the economic recovery driving demand and high gas prices, partially hampering renewables generation growth.

• The well-known sharp increase of electricity wholesale prices in all countries contributed to reinforce coal usage and fostered a debate on consumer protection and empowerment. To different degrees, all European countries have been affected, especially those dependent on gas for a large portion of their electricity generation.

• A constant increase of negative Day Ahead electricity prices compared to pre-pandemic values brings into focus the need for storage and demand side response, and on the importance of consumer empowerment.

See the evolution of day-ahead electricity prices and negative prices over the period 2016 to 2021 in our dashboard.

For the full overview, access the analysis on key Electricity Wholesale Markets developments.

What were the main monitoring trends in the Gas Wholesale Markets in 2021? Find out more.

Deepen your insights (e.g. by country of interest) by interacting with the dynamic charts on electricity market trends.