Elering and Fingrid invite Estonian market participants to take part in the pilot of the new frequency reserve

Fingrid and Elering extend the cooperation in exchange of balancing reserves beyond aFRR exchange and invite Estonian market participants to participate in the FCR-N exchange pilot to prepare for the synchronization with the Continental Europe frequency area.

FCR-N is a frequency-based reserve that regulates active power to manage the sudden changes in active power balance and cause change in system frequency. The FCR-N pilot would test the technical solution of FCR-N exchange in the extent of symmetrical product of 10 MW. The physical exchange shall be carried out on the Estlink1 HVDC unit. Fingrid and Elering see that technical capability for the start of the pilot shall be established by the end of Q3 2023, before that the service providers could configure and test the Reserve Unit for FCR-N provision. FCR-N exchange is operated based on the available capacity of EE-FI cross-border after the DA market while taking into account additional constraints. Estonian market participants shall participate in the Finnish FCR-N capacity market and will be remunerated based on the delivered capacity and FCR-N activations following the Finnish mFRR reserve or spot price, the same as Finnish BSPs. Elering and Fingrid reserve the right to suspend the pilot in the unlikely case that the pilot has a negative impact on system security.

Elering and Fingrid see the great value in establishing FCR-N exchange for Elering and Estonian market participants to help improve the know-how for the FCR provision when Baltic TSOs shall synchronize with Continental Europe Synchronous Area.

Elering shall develop the standard agreement and data exchange examples for Estonian market participants latest by 01.08.2023.

In case of questions regarding the FCR-N pilot or wish to participate, please get in touch with Tarmo Rähmonen at tarmo.rahmonen@elering.ee.