German grid agency strengthens supply security after strains in June
Clean Energy Wire
In response to several strains on the German electricity grid in June this year, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has now adopted three provisions to encourage managers to control their balancing groups more carefully. "We want to minimise risks to security of supply. Dangerous undercoverage of the balancing groups should not be worth it," said Jochen Homann, president of BNetzA. In June, power market experts said faulty regulation of the “control energy” used to balance out supply and demand on the grid and to secure system stability could have caused the “very tense situation.” Activating control energy is comparatively expensive and traders try to avoid it by forecasting supply and demand as precisely as possible. Due to a 2018 regulation, however, activating control power can be less costly than buying or selling power through regular markets. The three new provisions will, among other things, create stronger financial incentives for balancing group managers to balance energy quantities and give transmission system operators (TSO) access to more data to enable them to monitor management quality at a shorter notice.
Production of fluctuating green electricity in Germany has risen sharply in recent years. This has led to industry concerns about the security of power supply. But Germany still has one of the most reliable electricity grids in the world.
