What are manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves and what purpose do they serve?

The French Energy Code provides that:

"The national transmission system operator monitors availability and implementation of the reserves required for operating the grid. […]"

The monitoring mission of reserves entrusted to RTE principally involves building available reserves within short time-frames to counteract incidents occurring in real time.

There are four types of reserves which can be successively applied:

• Frequency Containment reserve (FCR) 
• automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR) 
• manual Frequency Restoration Reserve (mFRR) 
• Complementary Reserve (RR)

RTE’s Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) capacity requirement is established in accordance with the provisions of the “Joint proposal for dimensioning rules applicable to the FCR developed by all the mainland Europe TSOs in accordance with Article 153, paragraph 2, of the SOGL”.
 
The automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR) and manual Frequency Restoration Reserve (mFRR) are established in accordance with the requirements of ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators) Policy 1, which stipulates that:

• after an incident, the transmission system operator must be able to restore the power exchanges of its control area within 15 minutes at the latest,
• that the sizing of reserves available in less than 15 minutes is done based on the assumption and expectation of the largest possible generation incident.

 In addition, RTE also contracts reserves that enable the aFRR to be restored in less than 30 minutes: this reserve is the Complementary Reserve.
 
To meet these requirements for mFRR and Complementary Reserve, for which the sizing methodology is detailed in the Block Agreement (see the “Reference Documentation”, section at the bottom of the page), RTE contracts manual reserves through two types of calls for tenders: periodic calls for tenders and daily calls for tenders.

(*) downward mFRR : this type of reserve will be contracted from the RT₁₇ key date of the market rules relating to mFRR and Complementary Reserves.
When the RT₁₇ key date comes into effect, the volume requested in the call for tenders will be 500 MW.

RTE contracts manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves through periodic calls for tenders and daily calls for tenders

Previously, RTE contracted manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves via an annual call for tenders process and, for the additional volume, through daily tender processes.
As of January 1, 2026, the Electricity Balancing Guidelines no longer allows TSOs to issue calls for tenders with a contract period exceeding six months. Starting with version 5 of the mFRR-RR Rules, RTE has introduced a Periodic Call for Tenders (AOP) to replace the Annual Call for Tenders (AOA).
In its decision No. 2025-224, the CRE accepted the exemption requested by RTE to implement periodic calls for tenders covering periods corresponding to calendar quarters for the start-up of these AOPs. The volumes requested by RTE are 500 MW of upward manual frequency restoration reserve and 250 MW of upward complementary reserve.

For the Q1 2026, the dates of the AOPs are as follows:

The different types of tertiary reserves must meet the following criteria:

For daily tenders, balancing service providers must submit their capacity bids on the RACOON platform before 10 a.m. on D-1. The results are available at 10:30 a.m. Selected capacity bids are remunerated at the marginal price resulting from the tender.

In the event of an indivisible bid being submitted for mFRR_SPE products (hourly), the proposed capacity must be below a maximum threshold set at 10 MW (subject to compliance with the mandatory conditions detailed in the SI Racoon guide).

Parties awarded a mFRR-RR call for tenders must make their capacities available on the balancing mechanism. This is why all tenderers must first be signatory to a participation agreement in manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves and a participation agreement as a balance responsible party before the deadline for submission of tenders in response to the periodic call for tenders. This condition must also be fulfilled before any participation in the daily call for tenders. All of the contract and technical information is available here: Becoming a balancing service provider.

If you are a customer connected to the grid, you are required to either become a balancing service provider, or to enlist the services of an aggregator to participate in the mechanism. Please find in the following link the list of participants with balancing entities approved for manual frequency restoration reserve and complementary reserve.

To participate in manual frequency restoration and complementary reserve tenders, you must:

• be able to participate in the balancing mechanism as a balancing service provider (see Becoming a balancing service provider)
• fill in annex 1 of the mFRR-RR terms and conditions to request participation in the manual frequency restoration and replacement reserve tenders terms and conditions and send it to marketservices@rte-france.com
• send the documents and information listed in the mFRR-RR terms and conditions
• submit your tenders via the RACOON platform to participate in the periodic and day-ahead call for tenders

If you are a successful tenderer (periodic and/or daily), declare before the beginning of the commitments, the elements constituting your certified capacities perimeter for manual frequency restoration and replacement reserves according to modalities of terms and conditions.

Results of calls for tender

The results of mFRR-RR tenders are available on the RACOON platform for authorised parties.

In addition, RTE publishes the results of mFRR- RR calls on the dedicated Balancing Capacities page of the services portal.

In addition, RTE is providing the results of the mFRR-RR call for tenders for the years 2021 to 2025:

• data on the 2021 activations of the Balancing Entities engaged in manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves.
• the results of the call for tenders 2021  and the data concerning the tenders submitted.
• the results of the call for tenders 2022 and the data concerning the tenders submitted.
• the results of the call for tenders 2023 and the data concerning the tenders submitted. 
• the results of the call for tenders 2024 and the data concerning the tenders submitted. 
• the results of the call for tenders 2025 and the data concerning the tenders submitted. 

Information system and observability system

A holder of a mFRR-RR contract must:

• Obtain all the required access as a balancing service provider: Becoming a balancing service provider
• Apply the IT rules: RACOON - Guide SI mFRR RR - V1.6.1
• Apply the IT rules: CRISTAL - Guide SI NER - V1.5.1
• Implement an observability system as described in Annex 6 of the mFRR-RR terms and conditions (observability specifications).

Reference documentation 

• Terms and Conditions relating to the manual frequency restoration and complementary reserves. Version 5 applicable as of 1 October 2025
• Load-Frequency Control Block operational agreement

Contacts

For any queries, please email your usual sales representative or marketservices@rte-france.com (RTE Sales Division).

Additional info:

• Becoming a balancing service provider