Foreword

We are honoured, as President and Chair of the Board, to present you the ENTSO-E Annual Report 2020. This report is listing all the achievements of the European TSO community during last year.
As regulated entities, acting under a clear legal mandate, the European TSOs share the common mission of ensuring the security of the European interconnected electricity system. They also are responsible for enabling the optimal functioning and development of interconnected markets and are cornerstone in the integration of renewable energy sources and emerging technologies.
This year’s report shows again the commitment of TSOs in being key enablers of the climate neutrality objective by 2050 in line with the European Commission Green Deal’s initiative.
Throughout 2020, despite exceptional circumstances brought by the Covid-19 pandemic, ENTSO-E has continued to pool TSO expertise at European level to put climate and energy policy objectives into practice.
The Annual Report is aimed at informing our stakeholders about the many solutions which TSOs develop together to complete the Internal Energy Market (IEM), foster the needed onshore/offshore grid developments, increase cooperation with DSOs and customer participation, and accelerate innovation in European energy systems.
ENTSO-E will continue facilitating cooperation among TSOs and with stakeholders in moving towards one system of interconnected systems – able to deliver on the 2050 objectives while maintaining system security, competitiveness and move the customer to centre stage.
Hervé Laffaye
Laffaye

Hervé Laffaye
President
ENTSO-E

Joachim Vanzetta
Vanzetta

Joachim Vanzetta
Chair of the Board
ENTSO-E

Introduction

ENTSO-E in 2020

This Annual Report covers the period from January to December 2020. It focuses on the legal mandates given to ENTSO-E. The activities covered in this report were performed thanks to the 42 members of ENTSO-E who provide its financial resources and whose staff provides expertise to the Association. The successful implementation of these activities also relies on the input provided by stakeholders via ENTSO-E’s Independent Advisory Council, the Network Codes European Stakeholder Committees and other stakeholders groups, and via the public consultation processes.

This Annual Report will be submitted for stakeholders’ views in a public consultation from 16 July to 12 August 2021. The consultation results and responses will be considered and the Annual Report will be subsequently submitted to ACER for opinion.

While ENTSO-E and TSOs are still implementing the Third Package, 2020 also saw the implementation of several legal mandates stemming from the Clean Energy Package (CEP).

In addition, while delivering legally mandated tasks, ENTSO-E also aims to support policy objectives, in particular the Green Deal, on a pan-European level. This ambition concerns all aspects of ENTSO-E’s work as the increase of variable renewable generation and the electrification of several sectors, among others, impact all TSOs’ activities.

Concretely, this evolution has led, for example, TSOs to enhance the forecast, planning and regional coordination of real time operations. It has also pushed the introduction of new products to the energy markets as well as enhanced coordination with Distribution System Operators (DSOs) to develop new flexibility services. With both the planning and the research and development sides, ENTSO-E and TSOs are anticipating the impact of achieving a carbon-neutral European energy system by 2050. Examples of ENTSO-E and TSOs’ contribution towards this objective are highlighted in green boxes throughout this document.

Report Structure

Chapter 1: System Operation

The implementation of System Operation legal mandates tasks, aimed at improving operations and securing electricity supply with increasing volumes of variable renewable energy sources (RES). Many deliverables under the System Operation Guideline have been submitted, and activities stemming from the Emergency and Restoration Code were carried out in 2020. The chapter also outlines activities carried out in the field of regional development – especially the Outage Planning Coordination (OPC) and Short-Term Adequacy (STA) – as well as the Common Grid Model (CGM) and ENTSO-E Awareness System (EAS).

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Chapter 2: Market

TSOs are instrumental in the progressive harmonisation of electricity market rules, which enables the entry of increasing numbers of RES producers and thus contributes to a more sustainable energy system. In 2020, ENTSO-E and TSOs developed and submitted several methodologies for regional capacity calculation, bidding zones, capacity mechanisms and balancing.

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Chapter 3: System Development

These deliverables aim to support investment decisions by various actors of the electricity market with a view to achieving a carbon-neutral European energy system by 2050. In 2020, ENTSO-E and ENTSOG published their final joint TYNDP 2020 Scenario Report as well as joint TYNDP 2022 Scenario Storylines. The TYNDP 2020 assessed 154 transmission projects, of which were 97 cross-border projects, representing close to 90 GW of additional cross-border transmission capacity, and 26 storage projects, representing 485 GWh of storage capacity. Moreover, 2020 saw the approval of new methodologies related to the implementation of CEP provisions on resource adequacy.

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Chapter 4: Transparency Regulation

This chapter describes the development of the Transparency Platform (TP) for the ACER data purposes and for the purposes of data exchanges for the Financial Settlement of the frequency control error, the area control error and ramping (FSkar), and the implementation of the changes stemming from the Manual of Procedures (MoP). Publicly and freely available data allows the share of generation technologies of the different geographical areas to be transparently followed.

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Chapter 5: Research, Development and Innovation

This chapter outlines the ENTSO-E Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) activities in 2020 such as the publication of its new RDI Roadmap 2020 – 2030, the publication of two position papers on offshore, the position paper on the reduction of SF6 emissions and introduction of alternative technologies, the position paper on the Standardized control interface for HVDC SIL/HIL conformity tests and of the ENTSO-E Technopedia, and its participation in European Technology and Innovation Platform Smart on Networks for Energy Transition (ETIP SNET). The main driver is to identify the necessary innovation milestones for TSOs to reach the EU Green Deal policy objectives, thus achieving the green transition.

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Chapter 6: Cybersecurity, Interoperability and Data

Whereas cybersecurity activities have been carried out under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) project, ENTSO-E participated in the informal drafting team of the Network Code on Cybersecurity. The chapter also describes data exchange and interoperability activities to support network code implementation, the development of the Electronic Data Interchange library, and the publication of the version of the Harmonised Electricity Market Role Model. The transition towards a more sustainable society implies the electrification and digitalisation of sectors such as transport or heating. To work efficiently, this evolution will require more data protection and more interoperability standards to facilitate cross-border exchange.

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Chapter 7: TSO–DSO partnership and demand side flexibility

It includes the activities carried out in the framework of the TSO-DSO cooperation, key areas of cooperation report on Active System Management developed in 2020 by ENTSO-E and the DSOs associations, and a report on Demand Side Flexibility. With the constant increase of renewable generation, DSOs and TSOs must strengthen their coordination to facilitate the deployment of distributed flexibilities and operate their networks securely.

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ENTSO-E Annual Report 2020

This Annual Report covers the period from January to December 2020. It focuses on the legal mandates given to ENTSO-E. The activities covered in this report were performed thanks to the 42 members of ENTSO-E who provide its financial resources and whose staff provides expertise to the Association.

Chapters:

  1. System Operation
  2. Market
  3. System Development
  4. Transparency Regulation
  5. Research, Development and Innovation
  6. Cybersecurity, Interoperability and Data
  7. TSO–DSO partnership and demand side flexibility
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