Regional Seminar “Electricity Cross Border Trading – EU Perspectives” – Belgium

Objective

The objective of this seminar was to build the necessary capacity amongst representatives from key technical stakeholders in the PCs so as to be able to discuss and analyse EU practices in cross border cooperation in electricity; and to create the necessary familiarity amongst key technical stakeholders in the PCs in order to establish peer working groups (for each regional market).

The event included representatives of electricity TSOs from all Partner Countries including a representative of the Central Dispatch Centre of Central Asia. The activities of the Technical Expert Group Energy: Markets & Infrastructure (Team 5: Cross-border Electricity) was inaugurated at this event. The agenda was split into capacity building and a round-table discussion with EU and regional stakeholders on the second day of the event.

Activities included development of the concept note, thematic agenda and selection of the speakers for the event; engagement and coordination of the speakers' presentation content so as to be coherent and fulfil the objectives of the event; preparation of evaluation reports and review of the seminar’s conclusions; development and editing of training material handed out to the participants. In addition, the project Work Plan was presented for sub-component B3 (improved conditions for energy trade in the field of electricity and gas); a discussion was held of the fundamental principles under which the electricity markets work in the EU; and various other aspects were discussed, such as the role of institutions and market participants within liberalised electricity markets; the organisation of cross border trading and the associated market mechanisms and  the gradual convergence towards a common “target model”; the barriers, decision making processes and important milestones of cross border electricity trading in the region of the Energy Community; the situation in the Partner Countries and an update on the activities of EU associations representing Regulatory Authorities, Transmission System Operators and Power Exchanges. Further discussion was held on understanding the functions of a System and a Market Operator in managing the power system and the market while scheduling and administering cross border transactions; and acquaintance and/or update on the conditions and process of integration and cooperation in the Baltic and Eastern Mediterranean/Black Sea region.

The event was a mix of training, round table discussion and networking between TSO staff of the PCs and EU representatives (such as the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), ETSO-E, Association of European Energy Exchanges (EUROPEX) and the Energy Community). Turkey was also represented as the transit corridor between the Energy Community and the EU towards the Caucasus markets. Elering, the Estonian TSO, was also present as a pioneer in the Baltics with respect to the market and physical integration with Nordel. The event was perceived as one of the most vibrant and pluralistic in the INOGATE context with both a PC-to-EU and PC-to-PC exchange of experience and issues in the development of B3 sub-component: Cross Border Trading.

Participants

All INOGATE Partner Countries will participate.

This event is explicitly designed to raise the awareness of PCs’s TSOs (or equivalently the departments within the vertically integrated electricity undertakings carrying out TSO’s functions). Therefore, the event should be attended by the relevant part of the Technical Expert Group (TEG): Energy Markets & Infrastructure. Within the TEG there is a special group identified and referred to as Cross-border Trading – Electricity Group (CBT-E). This involves a Dispatch specialist and a Commercial Agreements and Markets specialist as the primary counterparts. It is anticipated that the latter profile should be considered coherent for the purposes of this particular event since capacity building on electricity markets (national and regional) and their functioning are in the focus of the vent rather than the specific technical and operational rules of power grids.

Based on the convention that TSO functions encompass Market Operation (MO) functions and that in certain cases these are bundled into vertically integrated electricity utilities, in total 16 participants from the PCs representing part of the CBT-E Group are expected to attend this event.