EC Welcomes Creation of New Electricity Organization, ENTSO-E
December 19, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
The new structure will be put in place in 2009, and functions of existing associations - such as the European Transmission System Operators (ETSO), the Union for Coordination for Transmission of Electricity (UCTE) and Nordel - will be transferred to the new organization during the first half of 2009.
"Given the challenging targets Europe has just agreed upon to combat climate change and to increase the share of renewables, we now need to focus on the implementation," said Andris Piebalgs, EC energy commissioner.
"Upgrading the existing grid, building new infrastructure and introducing new technology in large scale is needed in order to transport electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. Transmission system operators have a major role to play in this."
Challenges for the electricity grid come from connecting large amounts of wind power, often far away from consumption, the increased volatility of production and the increasing share of generation in the distribution networks.
In addition to increasing the capacity of the grids to meet these challenges, control systems and electricity markets need to be reshaped to allow for secure, efficient and economically optimal output of the European electricity system.
ENTSO-E could become the TSO organization foreseen by the third internal energy market package, which is currently under discussion between the European Council and the European Parliament, with a likely final adoption in the spring of 2009.
Once this package has been adopted, the EC and the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (the new regulators organization foreseen in this package) will have to give their opinion on the list of members and the statutes of the ENTSO-E.
However, for now the EC welcomes the establishment of this new body, which will accelerate the decision taking and the coming into force of the necessary institutions for the effective functioning of the internal energy market.
The regulators have been very active and are currently having a public consultation on the implementation of the third internal energy market package.
Preparatory work has already started to perform the tasks foreseen for ENTSO-E in the third package: planning of the European transmission grid, analyzing whether generation and network infrastructure is sufficient even in extreme circumstances, developing common network operation tools, coordinating research activities in the field of transmission and drafting network codes in close collaboration with the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators.
Source: European Commission.