Regulation 2015/1222 - Guideline on capacity allocation and congestion management - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 197/24

The urgent completion of a fully functioning and interconnected internal energy market is crucial to the objectives of maintaining security of energy supply, increasing competitiveness and ensuring that all consumers can purchase energy at affordable prices. A well-functioning internal market in electricity should provide producers with appropriate incentives for investing in new power generation, including in electricity from renewable energy sources, paying special attention to the most isolated Member States and regions in the Union's energy market. A well-functioning market should also provide consumers with adequate measures to promote more efficient use of energy, which presupposes a secure supply of energy.

Security of energy supply is an essential element of public security and is therefore inherently connected to the efficient functioning of the internal market in electricity and the integration of the isolated electricity markets of Member States. Electricity can reach the citizens of the Union only through the network. Functioning electricity markets and, in particular, the networks and other assets associated with electricity supply are essential to public security, to economic competitiveness and to the well-being of the citizens of the Union.

Regulation (EC) No 714/2009 sets out non-discriminatory rules for access conditions to the network for cross-border exchanges in electricity and, in particular, rules on capacity allocation and congestion management for interconnections and transmission systems affecting cross-border electricity flows. In order to move towards a genuinely integrated electricity market, the current rules on capacity allocation, congestion management and trade in electricity should be further harmonised. This Regulation therefore sets out minimum harmonised rules for the ultimately single day-ahead and intraday coupling, in order to provide a clear legal framework for an efficient and modern capacity allocation and congestion management system, facilitating Union-wide trade in electricity, allowing more efficient use of the network and increasing competition, for the benefit of consumers.

To implement single day-ahead and intraday coupling, the available cross-border capacity needs to be calculated in a coordinated manner by the Transmission System Operators (hereinafter ‘TSOs’). For this purpose, they should establish a common grid model including estimates on generation, load and network status for each hour. The available capacity should normally be calculated according to the so-called flow-based calculation method, a method that takes into account that electricity can flow via different paths and optimises the available capacity in highly interdependent grids. The available cross-border capacity should be one of the key inputs into the further calculation process, in which all Union bids and offers, collected by power exchanges, are matched, taking into account available cross-border capacity in an economically optimal manner. Single day-ahead and intraday coupling ensures that power usually flows from low- price to high- price areas.

The market coupling operator (hereinafter ‘MCO’) uses a specific algorithm to match...