Balancing mechanism status: July 2009

RTE ensures the real-time balance between production and consumption and deals with congestion on the French electricity system. The Balancing Mechanism assists in the accomplishment of this task. As in many countries, and after extensive dialogue with representatives from the market's various players, RTE proposes a Balancing Mechanism in the form of a permanent and transparent system of calls for tender. The system is open to everyone and provides a real-time reserve of power that can be used for balancing either upward or downward. RTE takes advantage of these offers according to economic precedence, taking into account the system's operating conditions. It pays for them at the offer price. There are two types of offer: - Upward offer: increase in production, decrease in consumption, imports, - Downward offer: decrease in production, increase in consumption, exports. For a Balancing Entity, an offer systematically consists of: a balancing direction (upward/downward), a time period, a price that may vary according to six time slots. RTE publishes each month a Balancing Mechanism Report. which includes the following information: - energy volumes activated to ensure the balance of the system and to resolve congestion; - minimum and maximum prices of offers activated to balance the system; - daily trends calculated according to the predominant value of the overall upward or downward trend; - balancing shares by technology (nuclear, thermal, hydraulic); - characteristics of the five most activated balancing entities; - balances/imbalances accounts and production/consumption overcharge; - congestion curbing costs on the French electricity system; - energy volumes activated to ensure the balance of the system according to contracts between RTE and other Balance Responsible entities (UK, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland); - reliability of the provisional data supplied by RTE about the balancing trend; - availability of RTE's information services (planning, balancing mechanism, block exchange notification, market indicators). This report presents the above information for July 2009. (J.S.)