To perform an activity on the French electricity market (generate, consume, sell, purchase, import, export…), you must designate a balance responsible party or become a balance responsible party.

On any electric system, power generated must be maintained in constant equilibrium with power consumed. In France, the regulation places the following responsibilities on stakeholders:

• Until real time (start of the half-hourly interval of delivery), balance responsible parties must ensure adequacy between injections and extractions within their balance perimeter. Any imbalances detected after reading data from the network (metering data) are subsequently invoiced.
• RTE is responsible for the physical equilibrium of the network. For this reason, if all the balance responsible parties are in overall imbalance, RTE calls on balancing capacities (balancing operations or frequency ancillary services) to resolve this. Balancing costs are borne by balance responsible parties in imbalance.

For each imbalance settlement period, the balance responsible party is a market player who therefore bears the proportional cost of balancing the French electricity system caused by the imbalance between the injections and extractions of its balance perimeter.

Furthermore a balance responsible party may amend the injection and extraction volumes of its perimeter before the half-hourly interval of delivery, via the block exchange system. 

The reconstitution of flows: how are balance responsible parties’ imbalances calculated?

Each balance responsible party must declare to RTE and, where appropriate, to distribution system operators, the elements of injection and withdrawal that comprise its balance perimeter.

These elements may be:

• transactional (block exchanges, import/export transactions, purchases/sales on markets…),
• or physical (generation/consumption sites).

The calculation of imbalances is based on a process of reconstitution of flows (injection and extraction): it involves sharing data from the public transmission system to the public distribution system. This process is carried out by RTE and distribution system operators. It is based on:

• data from meters,
• declared schedules sent by the market participants.

Every month and for each imbalance settlement period (today every half hour), RTE calculates the balance responsible parties’ imbalances and invoices them the imbalance settlement price.

Contracting with RTE

To become a balance responsible party, you must comply with the MA-RE Terms and Conditions established in consultation with the market participants and approved by the French Energy Regulatory Commission, by signing a participation agreement as balance responsible party.

To do this, you must:

1. Fill in the online questionnaire designed to verify the applicant’s suitability, then sign the document version (annex C2) which will be sent to you.

2. If you do not have an EIC code yet, you can apply with the online form.

3. Fill in the application form to become a balance responsible party. This form is also available in the MA-RE Terms and Conditions (annex C1).

4. Send the documents and information listed in annex C1.

5. Complete and send the following document: elements required to fulfil the participation agreement, which will be used to establish your contract (annex C3).

6. Establish a bank guaranty, strictly identical with requested model (annex C4), with the minimum amount stipulated in section 2 of the MA-RE Terms and Conditions.

7. If applicable, sign a contract with the distribution system operator on which you have generation or consumption assets (list of DSOs).

8. Declare the elements making up your balance perimeter using annex C7 of the MA-RE Terms and Conditions.

To designate a balance responsible party, we invite you to consult the balance responsible parties' list and fill annex C7 of the MA-RE Terms and Conditions.

Your services as a balance responsible party

RTE offers a set of services for balance responsible parties to optimise the management of their balance perimeters, including:

• Publication of public and private data on the Services Portal (HMI and downloads) and Data Portal (API).
• Consultation of your balance perimeter and linked invoicing data on Customer Services Portal (EPC).
• Access to the block exchange service (PEB), allowing you to buy and sell over-the-counter.

To access these services, you may need to create an account and/or hold a PKI certificate.

Costs related to balance responsibility

In addition to imbalance invoices calculated each month, balance responsible parties are charged for management fees related to their portfolio of activity in respect of annex services:

• 77€/month for each export transaction and each import transaction on a given border and delivery date, in month M-1 (interconnections),
• 7.5€ for each validated block exchange schedule per counterparty and per direction for a day D.

Finally, the volume of physical consumption of each balance responsible party is subject to a monthly payment to RTE, a function of factor "c".  This purpose of this factor is to cover the costs borne by RTE according to the procedures laid down in article L. 321-12 of the French Energy Code.

Since 1 February 2017, factor "c" is equal to 0, therefore the price applied is 0 €/MWh.

Reference documentation

• Rules relating to Scheduling, the Balancing Mechanism and Recovery of Balancing Charges section 2 chapters A-D,
• Rules relating to Scheduling, the Balancing Mechanism and Recovery of Balancing Charges section 2 chapter E (French version only),
• Rules relating to Scheduling, the Balancing Mechanism and Recovery of Balancing Charges section 2 chapter F (French version only),
• List of balance responsible parties.

Contact

For any questions, please contact marketservices@rte-france.com.

Additionnal information

• The block exchange service.
• Imbalance settlement price.
• Designate a balance responsible party.