Transmission System Regional Coordination in Europe
Europe boasts one of the largest interconnected electricity networks in the world, which consists of a huge number of generation, transmission and distribution components working together to deliver energy to users. The European power system, in order to fulfil its core mission - i.e. provide uninterrupted electricity supply to consumers - has to function reliably and has to survive a vast number of adverse events.
In order to better manage such a complex machine, which spans across the EU and several other European countries, an increasingly regional (i.e. multi-country) -based organisation of power system and market functions was put forward and implemented over the past decades. This is where Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs) came into play. In recent years the EU was affected by several crises, which among others highly impacted the electricity sector operations. The RCCs were therefore recognised by the European Commission as a tool to tackle security of supply issues from a regional dimension and mitigate the impact on the overall electricity system. The RCCs can provide regional and cross-regional services that no individual country-based transmission system entity is in the position to deliver. This also entails that RCCs might have to reconcile different interests of countries included in a given region and this task can become growingly strategic as well as sensitive, especially during crisis times. Thus, RCCs are one of the key actors in transmission system operation in Europe, considering their regional and cross-regional presence in the system operation areas. For that reason, increasing RCC-RCC cooperation and active involvement in the European decision-making initiatives appear crucial.
Besides the RCC overview this report is delivering, few points of improvements for RCCs tasks with forward looking vision, mainly in relation to the regional electricity crisis scenarios, are pointed out as well. RCCs could provide dedicated assistance to TSOs in national electricity crisis scenarios, which are the basis for the regional crisis scenarios identification. Altogether they can contribute in defining the risk-preparedness strategy and plans that all Member States have to produce and adopt, and which have to cover past, current and emerging threats. In the system adequacy and operational planning domains, RCCs could contribute with regional overview and simulations of the potential incidents, and show their competence in providing their products such as services, reports and recommendations, independent of national and TSOs’ interests. Member States, their TSOs and other entities, should have to start gaining trust in their products, which could become even more valuable with timely and proper mandates by the European Union bodies.
This technical report has been produced as part of the Administrative Arrangement (AA) N° ENER/B.4/2022-381-SI2.889061/36054 between DG Joint Research Centre and DG Energy. It is related to the deliverable “Support DG Energy in the activity”, more concretely “1.8. Investigation of the role of Regional Coordination Centres (RCCs) and tasks related to the security of electricity supply in Europe and Risk-preparedness Regulation”.
FORETIC Hrvoje;
ASENSIO BERMEJO Isabel;
KOPUSTINSKAS Vytis;
FULLI Gianluca;
2024-05-03
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC137433
978-92-68-15405-2 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 31922 EN,
OP KJ-NA-31-922-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC137433,
10.2760/01557 (online),
