Working group led by Elering receives EU Horizon2020 funding for creating an unique platform of electricity market flexibility services

In the next four years, Elering and its project partners will develop a flexibility services platform that connects Estonian, Finnish and Latvian electricity markets and that in future can be used throughout Europe.

The broader goal is to develop regional solutions for involving consumption and production based flexibility for power markets. At first, a platform covering Estonia, Latvia and Finland will be developed. Besides the Estonian transmission system operator Elering, TSOs of neighbouring countries, network operators and third-party research and development stakeholders from the Nordic-Baltic region are also involved in the project.

Chairman of the Elering management board Taavi Veskimägi: “The flexibility services platform will provide strong assistance for developing the electricity market and increase market liquidity. The solutions to be completed will in future be applicable throughout Europe and will be the basis for smart network solutions, market models and grid codes of the future.”

The new solution will allow flexibility services to be offered coordinately to system operators, network operators and other stakeholders on the market. The services will encompass different system and network services, including frequency regulation and management of network restrictions. “The platform will allow consumers to earn money when they decide not to consume electricity they have purchased. For desynchronizing the Baltic states form the Russian power system, we need significantly more generation and consumption flexibility, and the platform to be established should give market participants opportunities for this in a market-based manner,” said Veskimägi.

Ideally, the platform should be able to satisfy the needs for flexibility in the power system on different markets (wholesale, within-day, regulation and reserves market) and consolidate the possibilities offered by demand side response.

The development of the platform will take place as a part of the pan-European development and innovation project INTERRFACE, in which 42 parties from 15 countries are participating. Elering is in charge of a work package with 12 partners, aimed at developing a ready solution in the form of a flexibility platform that includes Estonia, Latvia and Finland. In the development of the platform the following parties are involved: Elering, Fingrid, AST (AS "Augstsprieguma tīkls"), Elektrilevi, Elenia, Empower, ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators), TUT (Tampere University of Technology), RTU (Riga Technical University), Codeborne, ED (European Dynamics, the leader of the general project) and UPRC (University of Piraeus Research Center).

In the beginning of July, the development of the platform received a positive funding decision from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.