Improving the Market for Flexibility in the Electricity Sector

Electricity will play a greater role in the transport and building sectors and all decarbonisation scenarios point to the increasing electrification of the energy system. To reach EU climate change targets, however, electricity will need to come increasingly from low carbon sources, especially (but not only) from variable renewable energy sources. Both trends − the electrification of sectors and the need to integrate electricity from variable renewables − mean that the electricity sector should become more flexible. This report reflects the discussions held in the CEPS Energy Climate House Task Force on Creating a Market Design for Flexibility in EU Electricity Markets, which met between April and September 2017. The Task Force formulated a number of recommendations in the areas of short-term and balancing markets; grid reinforcement and cross-zonal capacity allocation; aggregation; priority dispatch; DSOs (distribution system operators); and sectoral integration