Market mechanisms: how do they work?
Balance responsible party: keeping supply and demand in balance
The principle of a "Balance Responsible Party" gives consumers, generating facilities, suppliers and traders the opportunity to conduct all kinds of commercial transactions on the electricity market while encouraging players to balance their output and consumption.
A Balance Responsible Party is able to trade on electricity stock markets, to conduct "over the counter" transactions and to reduce unforeseen generation-consumption imbalances.
Balancing to avoid unanticipated failures
The amount of power being generated must always be equal to the power being consumed. RTE maintains this balance in real time while taking account of unforeseen generation/consumption issues (weather, generation capacity, etc.).
In order to maintain a balance between supply and demand, RTE must always set aside some reserves that it can adjust upwards or downwards.
There are three kinds of reserve power that can be used consecutively:
An integrated European balancing market has been established in order to form these reserves. Its guiding principles are set out in the EU Electricity Balancing guideline, which describes the technical, operational and commercial rules pertaining to the acquisition of balancing capacities, the activation of balancing energy and financial arrangements.