The Emergency and Restoration Network Code (NC ER) sets out harmonised rules on how to deal with emergency situations and restore the system as efficiently and as quickly as possible. It entered into force on 18 December 2017 and is primarily subject to implementation at a national or TSO level. Implementation should be finished till December 2022 (Art. 55 NC ER).

ENTSO-E has monitored the national implementation of the network code (Art. 52.1 NC ER) and supported its member TSOs in the delivery of their proposals for National Defence and Restoration Plans (Art. 6.2 NC ER). Moreover, guidelines for the rules for the situations in which the market activities are suspended and restored, which in turn are the responsibility of each TSO to implement, have been established (Art. 36.1 NC ER).

ENTSO-E has worked on the assessment of the level of harmonisation of the rules for the suspension and restoration of market activities established by TSOs, and will attempt to identify, as appropriate, the areas that require harmonisation. This report will be delivered by December 2020 (Art. 36.7 NC ER).

The implementation of the NC ER was discussed with stakeholders during meetings of the System Operation European Stakeholder Committee held on a quarterly basis in 2019.

The Common Grid Model (CGM) finds its legal basis in three of the network codes: the SOGL (Art. 64), the Capacity Allocation and Congestion Management (CACM) Regulation (Art. 17) and the Forward Capacity Allocation (FCA) Regulation (Art. 18). The CGM, and its data exchange system the Operational Planning Data Environment (OPDE), are a prerequisite for several services harmonised in the network codes, including coordinated capacity calculation, operational security analysis, outage planning coordination and adequacy analysis.

The CGM compiles the Individual Grid Model (IGM) of each TSO, covering timeframes going from one year before real time to one hour before real time. TSOs’ individual (in most cases, national) grid models, after following a quality assessment and pan-European alignment process, are picked up by Regional Security Coordinators (RSCs), who merge them into a pan-European CGM and feed the merged CGM back into the system.

The CGM Programme delivered Release 1.2 on schedule in June 2019, to TSOs and RSCs. In November 2019, TSOs, RSCs and the CGM Programme jointly demonstrated the Basic CGM Build Process, respecting the process times and achieving data quality levels. The Basic CGM Build Process test was carried out for three consecutive days and it was possible to merge IGMs from 17 TSOs into a CGM. In December 2019, the CGM Programme distributed Release 2.0 on schedule to TSOs and RSCs, including the associated security elements.

The roll-out of the Physical Communication Network (PCN) is on schedule.

A joint User Group has been established to synchronise deliverables among RSCs, Capacity Calculation Region (CCRs) and the CGM Programme. The joint CGM–RSC User Group aligns requirements and timelines among RSCs and CCRs and coordinates subsequent activities with the CGM Programme.

Methodologies

As the implementation of the CGM needs to be consistent throughout the various processes set in the SOGL, CACM and FCA regulations, the consolidation of the three methodologies into a single document was initiated by TSOs, keeping stakeholders abreast of developments in this respect via the European stakeholder committees.

CGM Security Plan

In line with the CGM Security Plan approved during the previous year, all TSOs and RSCs performed a first compliance self-assessment in February followed by an update in June 2019. In July 2019, the ENTSO-E System Operations Committee (SOC) approved an update of the implementation timeline, defining a stepwise implementation approach, resulting in a full compliance by all participants in August 2021.

Operational Planning Data Environment

The OPDE, specified in the SOGL (Art. 114), is the information platform that will support the data exchange associated with the CGM merging process. It is also the foundation of the data exchange platform for fulfilling the five core tasks of RSCs. This platform is currently on schedule with the rollout of Release 1.2 and the distribution of the new release 2.0. With Release 1.2, a total set of 130 major changes were implemented, including a set of 68 new features and updates to the existing software packages. Release 2.0 mainly includes security updates as well as new business requirements.

The European Awareness System (EAS) provides a real-time pan-European view of the state of transmission systems. All operators input a number of measurements including frequency and cross-border exchange. These measurements are then merged to provide an overall European view of each TSO on the platform. ENTSO-E has implemented the required updates to system status indications and predefined messages to ensure compliance of EAS with Art. 18 and 42 of SO GL. ENTSO-E is also working to ensure compliance of EAS with Art. 29 and 33 of the ER NC.

The Site Acceptance Test (SAT) has been successfully completed, and the upgraded EAS has been fully operational since September 2019. Moreover, to ensure safety on data exchange, ENTSO-E performed a cyber security risk assessment on EAS.

Cooperation at the regional level is a building block for ensuring security of supply and implementing the Internal Energy Market. The development of variable generation and increased interconnections render regional coordination among TSOs more important than ever.

ENTSO-E supports regional tasks where it is beneficial for the TSOs of the region. In this respect ENTSO-E provides a platform for coordinating regional deliverables which affect neighbouring regions and where addressing the matter at the pan-European level is more efficient than bilaterally.

RSCs are entities owned and appointed by TSOs to fulfil five tasks: security analysis, capacity calculation, outage coordination, adequacy forecast, and the CGM. The System Operation Guideline formalised the role of the RSCs and made it legally binding for TSOs to procure at least the five core tasks from one of the RSCs. Through their recommendations to TSOs, RSCs contribute to increasing efficiency in system operation; minimising risks of wide area events such as brownouts or blackouts; and lowering costs through maximised availability of transmission capacity to market participants.

The four TSOs, ESO–EAD (Bulgaria), IPTO (Greece), Trans­electrica (Romania) and Terna (Italy), of the South-East Europe (SEE) and Greece–Italy (GRIT) CCRs agreed in December 2019 to establish an RSC located in Thessaloniki¹.

The operational rules of the TSOs of Continental Europe have been updated in April 2019 with the entry into force of the Synchronous Area Framework Agreement (SAFA), which ensures compliance with the EU network codes and guidelines.

The European Commission welcomed in October 2019 the Technical Solution for inclusion of the Swiss transmission system in CACM and SOGL methodologies of the Core and Northern Italian Borders regions.