Analysis of the impact of cross-border balancing arrangements for Northern Europe

This paper presents an agent-based analysis of the impact of different cross-border balancing arrangements on balancing market performance for the case of Northern Europe, i.e. the Netherlands, Germany and the Nordic region, taking into account the change in behaviour of Balance Responsible Parties (BRPs). The four compared arrangements are separate markets, Area Control Error (ACE) netting, balancing energy trading, and a common merit order list. It is found that ACE netting reduces the total Dutch imbalance costs by 25%, but that the more advanced arrangements have the potential to reduce those costs for the Netherlands and Germany by as much as 50%. However, in case of the common merit order list the imbalance risks for Nordic BRPs increase largely because of the regional marginal pricing, and the system balance states of Germany and the Nordic region are largely affected due to changes in BRP behaviour. The large imbalance costs reductions in Germany and the Netherlands are the result of the import of more than half of the balancing energy from the Nordic region, which is possible because of the high availability of cross-border capacity between the areas.