The energy transition corresponds to a change from a centralised system to a more complex integrated electricity system, with decentralised and centralised co-existing. The new system also sees new actors, such as aggregators, active customers, demand side response and distributed flexibility.

Integration of distributed flexibilities

A key area for cooperation is active system management and the coordinated use of distributed flexibility. Storage, distributed generation and customer participation through demand-side response have the potential to generate new services for the grid and the system. These are known as distributed flexibilities, and they will be key to efficiently managing the electrical system of the future and developing new market products. A common report with DSOs on active system management was released in April 2019, aiming to define the use of distributed flexibilities in active system management and analyse the interactions between TSOs, DSOs and market parties, in particular for balancing and congestion management.

In addition to the above, ENTSO-E contributed to the European Commission Expert Group on demand side response, which focused on the deployment of explicit demand-side response in Europe, contractual arrangements between different players and market solutions for accessing and using distributed flexibilities. This work culminated with the publication in April 2019 of a demand-side flexibility report.

In March 2019, ENTSO-E decided to perform an analysis of regulatory gaps between the recommendations of these two reports and the set of existing network codes, as well as solutions for these gaps. ENTSO-E consulted on the identification of such gaps with TSOs’ experts involved in network codes activities.

ENTSO-E also updated its catalogue of TSO – DSO innovation projects to identify best practices for the integration of distributed flexibilities.

Other activities