Blog / Energy Pool Advocates for Flexibility Before the European Commission

Energy Pool Advocates for Flexibility Before the European Commission

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On 13 February, Energy Pool responded to the European Commission’s public consultation on the reform of the electricity market design within the European Union. As renewable energy production accelerates, the deployment of flexibility solutions must be encouraged to ensure their optimal integration and maintain the stability of the electricity system.

1. Send Long-Term Investment Signals to Unlock Industrial Flexibility Potential

It is essential to create favourable and long-term investment signals for flexibility capacity, enabling industrial consumers to unlock and reveal their potential for flexibility. Flexibility providers must be able to monetise their flexibility capacities across all wholesale markets, with sufficient visibility on the remuneration conditions of these services.

Moreover, capacity mechanisms should be revised to better reflect the constraints faced by industrial players when deploying and implementing flexibility solutions. In this regard, participation in capacity tenders could be opened 3 to 4 years ahead of the delivery year, with the possibility for providers to re-declare their capacities the year prior to delivery.

2. Adapt Markets to the Intermittent Nature of Renewable Generation

Energy Pool supports the development of new long-term electricity sales contracts tailored to renewable energy generation profiles, which would encourage consumption at the time of production.

In line with this, upward consumption flexibility should also be enabled to allow consumers to absorb surplus renewable generation when it occurs.

3. Ensure Market Rules Promote the Activation of Flexibility Resources

The role of aggregators in developing and activating potential flexibility must be preserved. The independence of demand response operators, especially in relation to electricity suppliers, must be guaranteed to ensure that consumers retain the full benefits of their flexibility. To this end, legislation should in particular safeguard the confidentiality of individual demand response data.

In addition, the use of private metering systems by operators should be permitted when data from network operators is unavailable or insufficiently reliable to accurately account for activated demand response.

Energy Pool highlights the economic benefits of deploying flexibility mechanisms compared to network reinforcement costs: according to a 2022 study by DNV and SmartEn, the activation of all available flexibility capacities could save between €11 and €29 billion annually in distribution network investment.

Finally, Energy Pool calls on the European Commission to ensure the effective implementation of EU legislation by all Member States, in order to enable the development of flexibility markets for all European citizens.