+ Do you have questions regarding the impacts and implementation of the 15-minute imbalance settlement period? RTE has set up an FAQ page to guide you.

 

Beneficiaries

• Market participants
• Generators
• Consumers
• Distributors

Context of this evolution  

The French balancing model is largely based on Balance Responsible Parties (BRP), in conjunction with RTE which is in charge of ensuring the physical balance. All market participants wishing to participate in the French market must designate a BRP. The latter undertakes to settle the costs resulting from imbalances, subsequently observed, between generation and consumption on its perimeter, as part of the Balance Responsible Party system.
The imbalance settlement period (or ISP) corresponds to the time granularity at which imbalances are calculated and settled. This interval thus reflects the time granularity at which BRPs are required to be balanced. Historically specific to each country, it is currently 30 minutes in France. Commission Regulation 2017/2195 “Guideline on Electricity Balancing” (EBGL) provides for the harmonisation of the ISP to 15 minutes. In its deliberation of 14 November 2018, the CRE granted a derogation until 1 January 2025 for its implementation in France.
This evolution is part of a generalised transition to the reference time interval of 15 minutes for many processes of the power system. The transition of the imbalance settlement period to 15 minutes is the first step in the process, taking place alongside two other major developments in the power system: the implementation of 15’ products on markets and the transition to 96 scheduling gates in France.

Impacts and major deployment steps

Given the central role of the BRP system in the organisation of the power system, the upcoming change in the imbalance settlement period time granularity has consequences on a wide range of areas, including: system operator metering systems, the profiling system, flow reconstruction, block exchange (PEB), adaptation of different market mechanisms (balancing mechanism, scheduling, frequency ancillary services, NEBEF, mFRR-RR, capacity mechanism), and more generally publications and exchanges between market players.
The following guiding principles, resulting from the consultation conducted in 2019, have been applied to precisely define the scope of the changes impacted and the trajectory of implementation: 

• Use the entire derogation granted by the CRE until 1 January 2025;
• There should be no extrapolation for the imbalances chain calculation: all of the inputs related to interval calculation must be made compatible with a 15-minute interval;
• Limit any changes related to side effects from other processes: only developments due to the change in imbalance settlement period time granularity are dealt with in the framework of the ISP15 project (for example, the transition to 15-minute market products in day-ahead and intraday markets is dealt with in the framework of the European projects SDAC and SIDC).  

Regarding the trajectory, a gradual deployment of the switching of the various systems between T2 2024 and T1 2025 was preferred to a "big bang" deployment.

See the provisional calendar of the switch in systems and exchanges between RTE and impacted market players.

Changes brought to data exchanges with RTE and technical documentation

To facilitate the consideration of the impacts of the transition to the 15-minute imbalance settlement period for all users of our services, RTE provides a description of the changes and the applicable technical documentation for the impacted services. Below you will find these elements according to type of market participant and theme. Once the switchover has taken place (excluding derogations), the associated documentation will be removed from this page and returned to its usual location on the page dedicated to associated mechanisms.

As mentioned during the AT ISP15 of the 07th and 08th of November 2023, several sessions of market participant test are offered in 2024. To take part in these tests, please contact RTE by email for more information (See "Contact" at the bottom of the page) 

Consult the provisional schedule of player test sessions by type of player. 

Changes to the metering of sites connected to the Public Electricity Transmission System (PTS)

The previous data is accessible to both BRPs and CART contract holders.

Documentation link for metering evolutions 

Amendments for Balance Responsible Parties

*The data is also accessible to CART contract holders when at least one of the holder’s sites is concerned.

Documentation link for Balance Responsible Parties evolutions

Amendments for DSOs

Note : from 05 October 2024 (provisional date), load curves will be transmitted via the RMC application (RMC User Guide)

Documentation link for DSOs evolutions 

Amendments for Balancing Service Providers and Scheduling Agents

Documentation link for Balancing Service Providers evolutions  

Amendments for Demand Response Aggregators

Documentation link for Demand Response Aggregators evolutions

Changes for Reserve Providers

Documentation link for Reserve Providers

Changes to public data made available by RTE

*Data available up to 04/10/2024 application date.

Documentation link for Public Data evolutions

Capacity Mechanism amendments

Documentation link for capacity mechanism evolutions

Contact

Please contact your account manager for any additional information on amendments related to the transition of the imbalance settlement period to 15’. For any technical issues relating to the operational implementation, contact RTE at: rte-isp15@rte-france.com