The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has decided on the Transmission System Operators (TSOs)’ proposal to amend the Forward Capacity Allocation methodologies related to:

• the establishment of a Single Allocation Platform and the requirements for sharing the costs of its establishment and operation,
• the Congestion Income Distribution.

The approved amendments extend the application of those methodologies to Fingrid (the Finnish TSO).

What are the benefits?

The amended methodologies will enable the issuing of long-term transmission rights on the Finnish – Estonian bidding zone borders and therefore provide the long-term cross-zonal hedging opportunities needed by the Baltic market participants.

To accelerate the availability of the long-term transmission rights on the Finnish-Estonian border, ACER promptly approved the amendments to the methodologies, issuing the Decisions more than three months ahead of the legal deadline.

Access ACER Decision 09-2022 on amendments to Single Allocation Platform (SAP) and ACER Decision 10-2022 on amendments to Congestion Income Distribution Methodology (CIDM).

The EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) adopted a decision granting National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) of the Continental Europe Synchronous Area (CE SA) an extension of six months to decide on the minimum activation period of frequency containment reserves (FCR) providers.

The adoption of this decision followed the joint request from the NRAs, which was submitted to ACER in May 2022. NRAs have now until 3 December 2022 to agree on the Transmission System Operators' (TSOs) proposal regarding the minimum activation period to be ensured by those FCR providers having units or groups with limited energy reservoirs to remain available during alert state.

What do frequency containment reserves (FCR) mean?

FCR (also known as primary control reserves) help maintain the power balance across the EU electricity grid. FCR are one of the balancing services to level out frequency deviations in the power grid. The FCR is the first response to frequency disturbances (e.g. following a planned/unplanned power plant outage). The minimum activation period must be ensured by the FCR providers. If the frequency deviation persists, the Frequency Restoration Reserves (FRR) subsequently replace the primary control reserve.

Access ACER’s Decision.