ACER issues a Recommendation for implementing the 70% minimum margin of capacity available for cross border trade in electricity
The European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) published today a Recommendation on the implementation of the 70% minimum margin to be made available for cross-border trade, according to Article 16.8 of the EU Regulation 2019/943 on the internal market for electricity.
Historically, electricity cross-border exchanges in the EU were discriminated vis-à-vis exchanges within countries, to the detriment of end consumers. ACER has been working for several years in promoting an increase in cross-border electricity interconnection capacity. This will imply more security of supply and better prices for citizens.
In a previous ACER Recommendation, issued in 2016, the Agency proposed three high-level principles, which Transmission System Operators (TSOs) have to take into account when developing capacity calculation and redispatching cost-sharing methodologies to avoid any undue discrimination of cross-zonal exchanges and to ensure that TSOs have incentives to take the right decisions when dealing with network congestion.
The Clean Energy Package proposals presented by the European Commission in November 2016 reflected these principles.
The recast of the EU Regulation on the internal market for electricity includes a more specific provision on capacity calculation, prescribing that, as from 1 January 2020, TSOs shall make available a minimum binding level of capacity equal to 70% for cross-zonal trade.
The Recommendation published today promotes a consistent implementation of this provision, providing guidance to TSOs on how to implement the minimum 70% capacity target and to regulatory authorities on how to monitor the achievement of this target in a harmonised and consistent way. The Recommendation will also help Member States to assess how far they are from the target and whether they need to introduce transitory measures.
The Recommendation can be accessed here.