Guideline on electricity transmission system operation

KEY POINTS

As part of the EU’s Third Legislative Package in the field of energy, Regulation (EC) No 714/2009 sets out the rules governing access to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity with a view to ensuring the proper functioning of the EU’s internal market in electricity. It creates the European Network of Transmission System Operators for electricity (ENTSOE) which, together with the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, develops the European network codes and guidelines — i.e. the rules for the operation of the electricity and gas sectors, which are then adopted by the European Commission. These rules seek to ensure that Europe’s energy transmission systems meet the goals of security of supply, increased competitiveness and affordable energy.

In introducing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation, Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1485 is a highly technical regulation and has five sections. This summary focuses on some of the content of the first section which lays down general aspects. It then provides an outline of the content of the technical sections.

GENERAL ASPECTS

Subject matter

The regulation lays down detailed guidelines on:

• requirements and principles concerning operational security;
• rules and responsibilities for the coordination and data exchange between TSOs, between TSOs and DSOs, and between TSOs or DSOs and SGUs, in operational planning and in close to real-time operation;
• rules for training and certification of system operator employees;
• rules on operational security analysis, including regional operational security coordination and appointment of regional security coordinators (RSCs);
• requirements on outage coordination;
• requirements for scheduling between the control areas for which the TSOs are responsible; and
• rules aiming at the establishment of an EU-wide framework for load-frequency control and reserves.

Scope

The regulation applies to all transmission systems, distribution systems and interconnections in the EU and regional security coordinators except those located in islands of EU countries of which the systems are not operated synchronously (i.e. interconnected) with Continental Europe (‘CE’), Great Britain (‘GB’), Nordic, Ireland and Northern Ireland (‘IE/NI’) or Baltic synchronous area.

Definitions

The regulation contains 159 — mostly technical — definitions.

TECHNICAL SECTIONS

The areas covered by the technical sections of the regulation concern:

1. Operational security:
   • operational security requirements,
   • data exchange,
   • compliance,
   • training.
2. Operational planning:
   • data for operational security analysis in operational planning,
   • operational security analysis (including rules concerning the organisation of regional operational security coordination via the appointment of RSCs),
   • outage coordination,
   • adequacy,
   • ancillary services (a service necessary for the operation of a transmission or distribution system),
   • scheduling,
   • ENTSOE operational planning data environment.
3. Load-frequency control and reserves:
   • operational agreements,
   • frequency quality,
   • load-frequency control structure,
   • operation of load-frequency control,
   • frequency containment reserves,
   • frequency restoration reserves,
   • replacement reserves,
   • exchange and sharing of reserves,
   • time control process,
   • cooperation with DSOs,
   • transparency of information.

The final section of the regulation is mainly concerned with application dates.