ACER highlights the high transmission capacities provided by Transmission System Operators to the European Electricity Market
On July 21st, 2023, EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) released its Report on cross-zonal capacities and the 70% margin available for cross-zonal electricity trade. ⚡🔌
The four German TSOs 50Hertz Transmission GmbH, Amprion GmbH, TransnetBW GmbH and #TenneT identified major successes shown in the report.
1. ACER’s report monitors the progress of the 70% margin, but most countries apply action plans and/or derogations.
The overall goal of European Market legislation is achieving a margin of 70% of grid capacities for cross-zonal trade. Monitoring this 70% value is therefore basically reasonable. However, when a so-called national action plan is in place, the 70% target does not have to be met straightaway. In such cases, transitional values apply which are year by year increased to reach the 70% end value at a certain date. It therefore makes sense to monitor the completion of applicable transitional target values, as they are the relevant benchmark for the given time period. Many countries such as Germany have chosen to apply national action plans and/or derogations with the aim to reach the 70% target margin by 2026.
2. ACER confirms the great success of the common capacity calculation in the #Core region since June 2022 and German TSOs are reaching their action plan target in 96% of all hours since the Go Live of joint capacity calculation in the #Core region in June 2022.
ACER confirms that German TSOs are very close to perfectly fulfilling the requirements, with a 96% success rate (see figure 36 in ACER’s report). This figure uses the most accurate data from the Core publication tool and shows the overall great success of the common capacity calculation in the #Core region by higher fulfilment rates for almost all other TSOs of the Core region.
3. ACER and the German regulator BNetzA show a similar picture despite different monitoring principles thus confirming the overall progress made.
In the national evaluation, German TSOs are reaching their target values in all hours since the Go Live which corresponds to a 100% success rate. The discrepancy in comparison to the ACER analysis is due to methodological details. E.g., ACER uses in some instances forecasts of the allocated capacity instead of capacities offered in reality and does not consider long-term capacities in their evaluation. Furthermore, capacity reductions due to grid security reasons are considered compliant by the German regulator.