Report on the implementation of the minimum threshold of 70% of interconnection capacity for cross-border trade at the French borders for 2020: assessment and outlook. Report, May 2021

The minimum threshold of 70% of interconnection capacities (70% requirement) was introduced during the revision of the Internal Market for Electricity (IME) Regulation as part of the Clean Energy Package adopted in 2019. It pursues the objective that a significant part of the interconnection capacities be available for exchanges within the internal electricity market. It came into force for all European transmission system operators on 1 January 2020. Under the provisions of the IME Regulation, the responsibility for enforcing this minimum threshold by transmission system operators lies with the national regulatory authorities. CRE is thus responsible for ensuring that RTE guarantees interconnection capacities in compliance with the IME Regulation on the various French borders. Since the beginning of 2020, CRE has therefore systematically monitored the capacities made available for cross-border exchanges by RTE thanks to detailed data reported for each capacity calculation region. An interim report on the implementation of the 70% requirement was published in December 2020, setting out the compliance approach and results for the first half of 20201. This report aims to present the results for the second half of 2020 and to provide an outlook for the coming years. In the second half of 2020, and building on the first half, it appears that the levels of interconnection capacity made available to cross-border exchanges by RTE are high, with average levels of between 75% and 100% of the maximum capacity of the network elements depending on the capacity calculation region. Under the current conditions of structure and operation of the French electricity grid, RTE is therefore fully involved in the construction of the internal electricity market. In order to ensure that interconnection capacities allow for an effective increase in cross-border exchanges, CRE analyses the achievement of the 70% requirement on the network elements considered in the capacity calculation according to their ability to support additional value-bearing exchanges on a European scale. In this context, CRE pays particular attention to the elements located in France that may constrain the interconnection capacities made available for cross-border exchanges (known as 'limiting elements') as well as to the time steps in which the capacities made available by the transmission system operators actually limit exchanges and prevent price convergence in the capacity calculation region. Outside these situations, any additional capacity released does not effectively increase cross-border exchanges. CRE therefore categorises these situations, in which no gain would be possible on a European scale, as compliant, because it is not possible for RTE to increase the capacity made available for cross-border exchanges in these time steps and it is not desirable to undertake costly actions on a European scale at a pure loss. The results of this analysis for the months of the second half of 2020 are presented. Beyond the implementation of the 70% requirement, RTE has worked throughout 2020 on the development of tools to increase its ability to ensure such capacity levels without leading to the operational limits being exceeded on the network elements concerned. These tools, already deployed in the Core/Central- Western Europe region, identify whether available remedial actions would ensure the operational feasibility of higher capacity levels than those directly derived from the capacity calculation. In the future, these tools will therefore make it possible to more systematically provide capacity levels equal to 70% at the French borders. Lastly, considering the numerous exchanges with European and French stakeholders on the implementation of the 70% requirement, RTE has initiated a project to publish in open access the data relating to the available capacity on all the network elements considered in the capacity calculation of the Core/Central-Western Europe, Italy North and South-Western Europe regions. CRE fully supports this initiative and believes that open access to the data will allow all European and French stakeholders to develop a more complete understanding of the issues resulting from the implementation of the 70% requirement