Third regional generation adequacy assessment report published

The study was carried out by the Transmission System Operators of the seven countries cooperating in the Pentalateral Energy Forum (PLEF): Austria, Belgium, France, Ger-many, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The PLEF is the framework for regional cooperation in Central Western Europe towards improved electricity market integration and security of supply. 

The study takes as basis the assumptions from the latest ‘Mid Term Adequacy Forecast (MAF)’ published end of 2019 by ENTSO-E and adds several sensitivities, which were defined by the TSOs, validated by ministries, and consulted with regulators within the Pentalateral Forum. This has turned out to be a major added value for this 3rd Regional adequacy assessment to test the resilience of the region towards several sensitivities. 

In addition to the latest ‘Mid Term Adequacy forecast’, the PLEF TSOs relied significantly on methodological evolutions by national TSOs within national studies. Compared to the second assessment, the usage of a flow-based (FB) model as the standard methodology for the considered time horizon (2025) and the consideration of the 70% minRAM requirements from CEP, is one of the main areas of improvement of the methodology (based on the work performed by Elia in its ‘Adequacy and flexibility study for Belgium 2020 - 2030’ published in June 2019). The other aspects of the methodology are in line with the latest ENTSO-E MAF publication.

The results obtained by the PLEF GAA confirm those obtained by Elia in its ‘Adequacy and flexibility study for Belgium 2020 - 2030’: under the assumptions taken, an important need for new capacity will be required in 2025 despite the assumed increase and development in demand response, renewables, storage and interconnection capacity.

A key finding from the study is that the structural adequacy deficit identified is very dependent on the risks beyond Belgium’s control, as the different regional sensitivities performed in the study (‘Low Gas’, ‘Low NUC’) highlight how an unavailability of generation or interconnection capacity abroad has an important impact on Belgium’s adequacy. It should be noted that in the Elia ‘Adequacy and flexibility study for Belgium 2020 - 2030’ published in 2019, a volume of 3.9GW new capacity in 2025 has been identified to ensure the adequacy of the Belgian system and cover for uncertainties which are ‘beyond control’ of Belgium.