Balancing service is an ancillary service under which the balancing market participants, following the procedures laid out in the Ancillary service agreement, increase or reduce the electricity production (capacity) in their power generation facilities or provide a demand response service.
To facilitate equal opportunities for all Baltic balancing market participants and to comply with European Commission Electricity Balancing guidelines, Baltic transmission system operators agreed to organize a common balancing market. Common Baltic Balancing market started operating on 1st of January 2018. Read more about system balancing here.
Balancing services can be provided by a market participant whose portfolio includes power plants or demand facilities that are declared as prequalified for providing the balancing service by JSC Augstsprieguma Tīkls (hereafter – AST) on the basis of requirements included in the decision of Public Utilities Commision of Latvia on 26 June 2013 "Tīkla kodekss elektroenerģijas nozarē" (in Latvian, hereafter – Tīkla kodekss) and AST requirements in accordance with 2.3. paragraph of Annex 8 of Tīkla kodekss.
In addition, all Baltic balancing service providers are bound by the harmonized rules for the coordinated Baltic balancing area (from 1 January 2022):
The Ancillary service agreement is signed with a market participant who wishes to provide balancing services to the transmission system operator. The agreement includes provisions for the following aspects of cooperation:
- procedure of balancing service provision;
- procedures of balancing energy trading due to activations of balancing products, between the transmission system operator and the balancing service provider;
- data exchange procedure;
- settlement procedure;
- procedure for development and approval of standard terms and conditions for the provision of balancing services under the Ancillary service agreement and Technical and data exchange requirement for reserve providing units.
Standard terms and conditions for the provision of balancing services under the Ancillary service agreement
According to the Ancillary service agreement, the Standard terms and conditions for the provision of balancing services under the Ancillary service agreement are binding for all balancing service providers. The terms and conditions include provisions for the following aspects of cooperation:
- general provisions – the objective, definitions of terms used in the agreement and related documents;
- the procedure of the submission of balancing energy product bids;
- balancing energy bid activation;
- submission of consumption and generation schedule;
- provision of submetering data;
- submission of reports;
- balancing pricing mechanism;
- the procedure for determination and reconciliation of energy volumes delivered via bid activation;
- prequalification procedure for reserve providing units and declaration of prequalification.
Technical and data exchange requirements for reserve providing units
Only reserve providing units that are compliant with the Technical and data exchange requirements and have received a declaration of prequalification issued by the transmission system operator can be used for provision of balancing services. The Technical and data exchange requirements include:
- General data exchange requirements;
- Requirements for data exchange between AST and the balance service provider;
- Submetering requirements;
- Commercial metering requirements;
- General technical requirements for reserve providing units;
- Requirements for composition and usage of reserve providing units;
- Procedure for initial and re-qualification of reserve providing units;
Agreement template and the terms and conditions
Agreement template and the terms and conditions (from 17 August 2022):
- Standard System ancillary service agreement (in Latvian);
- Terms and conditions of System ancillary service agreement (in Latvian);
- Technical and data exchange requirements for reserve providing units (in Latvian):
Terms and conditions (until 16 August 2022):
| Balance service provider | Registration number | EIC |
|---|---|---|
| "Latvenergo", AS | 40003032949 | 43X-T-LATVENER-K |
| "Moduss Holding", SIA | 50203068851 | 43X-TG-MHO00044Y |
| "Sal-Energo", SIA | 48503010734 | 43X-TG-SAL00042O |
| "UŽAVA ENERGO", SIA | 41203067181 | 43X-TG-UEN00046Q |