ENTSO-EHow to keep pace with the energy transition, increase the efficiency of the internal energy market and maintain a high level of security of electricity supply?
ENTSO-E considers regional cooperation among ministries, regulators and transmission system operators, crucial for further advancing the single market for electricity. Governments, regulators and TSOs have not only to interact efficiently on the national and European levels. They should also form efficient regional structures. ENTSO-E calls these structures Regional Energy Forums (REFs).
The REFs would coordinate policies in a region on important issues such as capacity mechanisms, energy mix, renewables integration, loop flows, bidding zones, etc. The paper lists a series of existing regional settings that could serve as inspirations for the REFs which, ENTSO-E says, should work bottom up and in all transparency.
“Regional energy forums would unite the political, regulatory and technical perspectives in regions; bridging the gap between the national and the European levels and contributing to deepen the energy relations in Europe”, says Laurent Schmitt, Secretary General of ENTSO-E. “We see today that challenges on several borders can’t be addressed properly without such regional architecture”, he pursues.
The potential of regional coordination has been highlighted by the European Commission several times and most recently in its new legislative proposal, “Clean Energy Package for All Europeans”. This set of laws is now being discussed in the European Parliament. “With this paper, we want to raise awareness on the need to have more policy/regulatory alignment in regions to leverage more benefits for customers, and make concrete proposals on the areas to be addressed by REF”, concludes Laurent Schmitt.