KEY MESSAGES
- Eurelectric calls for targeted adjustments to the Electricity Balancing Guideline (EBGL) to consolidate the achievements of European balancing markets while addressing persistent shortcomings that undermine their efficiency and fairness.
- EBGL 2.0 must secure a genuine level playing field on balancing platforms, ensuring fair and equal treatment of Balancing Service Providers (BSPs) regardless of their location, size or technology.
- This requires timely and effective TSO participation to European balancing platforms and a stronger alignment of BSP rules (pre-qualification, ex-post verification, remuneration, etc.), ensuring that BSPs have consistent incentives when competing across borders and that all balancing services are remunerated appropriately.
- Eurelectric further supports a truly European imbalance harmonisation methodology ensuring cost-reflective imbalance prices and near-real time publication, as well as a progressive convergence of the underlying IT infrastructure.
- For balancing platforms to deliver, sufficient cross-zonal capacity must be made available in the balancing timeframe and allocated efficiently, based on careful assessment rather than premature or untested design changes.
- Market efficiency further depends on regulatory stability and proportionate policymaking. Eurelectric therefore stresses the need for a full assessment of the costs and benefits involved in major market design changes, such as the co-optimisation proposal.
- Finally, Eurelectric supports a consolidation of the 15-minute imbalance settlement period (ISP) and would oppose a move to a shorter ISP under the current iteration of EBGL.Â