New Electricity Regulation

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The new Electricity Regulation aims to adapt the existing market rules to new emerging market realities.

The new Regulation provides a set of fundamental principles for well-functioning, integrated electricity markets.

It includes general rules for the electricity market and covers in detail network access and congestion management, resource adequacy, transmission system operators, distribution system operators, as well as network codes and guidelines.​

​The new Electricity Regulation foresees the establishment of Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs), replacing the regional security coordinators established by the System Operation Guideline. 

Their tasks include: 

• supporting the consistency assessment of transmission system operators' defence and restoration plans, ensuring an effective application of the Emergency and Restoration Network Code's procedure

• supporting the coordination and optimisation of regional restoration

• carrying out post-operation and post disturbances analysis, and

• reporting and identifying regional electricity crisis scenarios
  

For the RCC to become operational by 1 July 2022, their geographical scope should be defined through a proposal for system operation regions. 

The proposal should be submitted to ACER by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) and must specify which transmission system operators, bidding zones, bidding zone borders, capacity calculation regions and outage coordination regions are covered by each of the system operation regions. 

The proposal shall take into account the grid topology, including the level of interconnection and interdependency of the electricity system in terms of flows and the size of the region (covering at least one capacity calculation region).

The activities of RCCs will be coordinated across regional boundaries, while the day-to-day coordination within and between the RCCs will be managed by cooperation processes among the transmission system operators of the region, as well as by arrangements between the RCCs.

​Implementation steps

​Action 1: From October to November 2019, ENTSO-E has conducted a public consultation on its proposal for System Operation Regions (SOR). ​

Action 2: On 6 January 2020, ENTSO-E submitted the SOR proposal to ACER. Find out more about the ENTSO-E proposal for System Operation Regions  and the Explanatory document  accompanying the proposal.

Action 3:  On 6 January 2020, ACER opened a public consultation  for all stakeholders on ENTSO-E proposal.

Action 4: Within three months following the receipt of the proposal, ACER shall approve or amend it. In case of any amendments, ACER shall consult ENTSO-E before adopting any changes.

Action 5: ACER published the adopted decision on its website.

Action 6: On 15 March 2021, ACER published a public notice on the opening of a procedure for the definition of system operation regions​ (ACER-ELE-2021-010).​

​Following the revision of the Electricity Regulation, Transmission System Operators (TSOs) have the obligation to reach a minimum level of cross-zonal capacity to facilitate electricity trading across countries.

When Member States or TSOs cannot comply with their obligations, they can establish an action plan, or ask for a derogation.

Derogations allow TSOs more time to implement the necessary measures and be compliant; and they are granted for a maximum of two years. Action plans provide time to address structural network constraints – possibly requiring investment – over a longer time horizon (5 years). National regulatory authorities can grant derogations, while action plans are provided by the Member State.

To facilitate the monitoring of the European electricity market, the Agency is compiling all the derogations and action plans granted and also collecting relevant documents.​