Developing a single European electricity flexibility market
“Litgrid” is participating in a project with other European network operators to enable all of Europe’s electricity systems to work together in a smart way, and to provide a level playing field for market participants. It aims to ensure that even the smallest producer-consumers are full participants in the market, with greater flexibility to produce even more renewable electricity.
Recently, “Litgrid”, together with dozens of other participants from different European countries, signed an agreement to participate in the EU-funded project “One Network for Europe” ("OneNet"), which will test flexible network solutions to help realise the vision of a connected grid.
“With the rapid development of renewable generation in electricity grids, operators need to react faster and more flexibly to manage electricity flows. Cooperation between transmission and distribution network operators in different countries is also important. While it is challenging to build a single system for the whole of Europe, solutions that can help different systems to work together are essential to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the smart grid. The aim of the “OneNet” project is to try to transfer these solutions from the plans to the daily operations of electricity network operators,” says Liutauras Varanavičius, the Director of “Litgrid” Strategy Department.
The project aims to create a framework to support the flexibility, monitoring and optimisation of markets and to enable all market players, from small consumers to large producers, regardless of their physical location in Europe.
This means that, for example, a small solar electricity producer in Lithuania would have the opportunity to sell its electricity not to a distribution operator, but on the market - and not just in Lithuania, but in any country of the European Union. Another example is that it could contribute to the provision of balancing services by merging with other small generators. This would benefit not only such market players, but also operators, for whom it would mean additional flexibility to integrate the growing renewable generation.
Divided into 4 test clusters, the project has 70 participants - electricity transmission and distribution operators, interconnecting organisations, electricity exchanges, IT companies and research institutions.
“Litgrid” is a member of the Nordic Testing Cluster together with AB ESO, the Lithuanian distribution network operator, which aims to leverage flexibility platforms by combining different market products and ensuring seamless processes between the resources of transmission and distribution system operators.
The project will run for 3 years and is funded by the European Commission’s innovation programme “Horizon 2020”. The total budget of the project amounts to €27.9 million, and the amount of funding provided by “Litgrid” is €106.8 thousand.
