Study of the interactions and dependencies of balancing markets, intraday trade and automatically activated reserves

Abstract

Since the launch of electricity sector liberalisation in the EU, the creation of the Internal Electricity Market (IEM) has been high on the agenda of the European Commission (EC) and European energy regulators. Considerable effort has been put into integrating national electricity markets, prompting a number of successful regional initiatives. Balancing markets spanning national frontiers are an important step towards completing the IEM. Against this backdrop, the EC (DG TREN) commissioned this study with the purpose of deriving practical recommendations on the optimal design and effective implementation of cross-border balancing or real-time markets. To ensure the compatibility of marketoriented recommendations with the physical reality of interconnected power systems, the study was conducted by an integrated team of engineers and economists from Tractebel Engineering and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U. Leuven).