Taking into account the requirements of the European Commission Regulation laying down electricity balancing guidelines, the National Energy Regulatory Council (NERC) approved the Standard Terms and Conditions of the Balancing Services Purchase-Sale Contracts and the Standard Terms and Conditions of the Imbalance Purchase-Sale Contracts prepared by LITGRID AB.
The approved standard terms will be binding on the balancing service providers operating in Lithuania and for the imbalance responsible parties. The contracts set out the requirements for who can become a balancing services provider and for the imbalance responsible party, as well as regulate the trade in balancing electricity and imbalance.
Substantial amendments: compared to the current terms of standard contracts for balancing services and imbalance purchase-sale:
• the main change in the Terms and Conditions of the Contracts is related to the implementation of the Balancing Network Code, which provides for balancing capacity auctions to be held on the day-ahead, i.e. balancing capacity will be ordered daily, instead of the current procedure, when balancing capacity is reserved to a predetermined extent for the year ahead. This amendment will allow the efficient use of available electricity generation capacity and ensure the reliable operation of the energy system;
• the definition of imbalance has been updated, while the elements set out in the rule and formula for calculating the amount of imbalance have been harmonised with those in the definition of the imbalance;
• the amount of the minimum security obligation, which is calculated as the amount of electricity supplied by a small market participant (up to 5 MW) in two weeks, if the entire amount supplied in the imbalance market is purchased, has been adjusted;
• conditions for the provision of mandatory balancing capacity service offers within the available reserve capacity are included;
• after the transmission system operator activates the reserve capacities, the offer price of the produced balancing energy cannot exceed 5000 Eur / MWh.
The approved standard terms and conditions for trading balancing electricity and imbalance create equal and non-discriminatory conditions for all producers/market participants while allowing the transmission system operator to ensure efficient operation of the system.
Market participants identified as having significant influence in the secondary emergency reserve market (currently recognised as such entity – AB Ignitis gamyba) cannot offer a higher price than the upper limit of the secondary emergency reserve set by the NERC when participating in the auction of balancing capacity organised by LITGRID AB.