Challenges
How to identify key features from existing worldwide governance models for the future governance of the European transmission networks towards 2050? Which regulatory best practices can be derived in that respect?
Background and assumptions
The e-Highway2050 project defines architectures for the transmission system in 2050. They are based on a scenario approach projecting the outlook of the energy system in Europe in 2050 and on the already known grid reinforcements scheduled until 2030 which constitute the “starting grid” of the approach, common for all scenarios.
1. Overall approach to identify suitable options for the governance framework for the electricity transmission networks of 2050
Five successive steps have been performed in order to identify a set of key regulatory options for the governance of the European electricity transmission networks up to 2050, starting from a state-of-the-art analysis of worldwide relevant experiences regarding the governance of national and transnational infrastructures:
- Selecting approaches to the governance of national and transnational infrastructures (“Governance Models”) taking into account current experiences from around the world;
- Identifying a list of main regulatory topics relevant to the study (“Building Blocks”), allowing for a systematic description and like-for-like comparison of the selected governance models;
- Defining a set of criteria (“Assessment Criteria”) to assess the performance of each Governance Model per Building Block;
- Identifying the best-performing Governance Models, per Building Block, based on the corresponding Assessment Criteria;
- Proposing a set of key regulatory principles (“Options”) to be considered for a potential future application in Europe. This set combines the most promising regulatory features of the best-performing Governance Models within each Building Block, with some of the relevant features of other Governance Models.
2. Eleven Governance Models to explore
Eleven currently existing Governance Models representing a broad geographical and sectorial spread, including non-electricity examples have been analysed in order to identify promising regulatory practices for the future governance of the European transmission networks towards 2050.
Table 1 : Selected Governance Models
Three models correspond to approaches currently in place in Europe (Germany, Great Britain, Nordic countries). Four other models represent approaches in place in the power sectors of North and South America (USA, Brazil, Argentina and Central America), representing different views to address planning and operational integration. The USA approach is based on a Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) covering market regions, and focuses mainly on aspects where federal electricity regulation or guidelines apply. Central America represents another region where substantial efforts have been made to better integrate network expansion and system operation activities. On the other hand, the Brazilian and Argentinean Governance Models are applied in fully integrated systems that function as a single one.
Two models focus on generic case studies that could be applied in a variety of areas in the world, respectively on operations of systems based on distributed energy resources and on the management of merchant investments, for which regulation largely differs from the one conventionally applied to transmission and system operation activities. The last two models complete the portfolio with examples outside the electricity sector.
3. Five Building Blocks and their challenges
Key regulatory topics, referred to as “Building Blocks”, have been identified as main areas for which potential improvements of the existing regulatory and governance frameworks might be appropriate by 2050. These Building Blocks are presented in the table below.
Table 2 : The five building blocks.
The overall challenge consists in the ability to realise the grid network architectures for 2050, which in any scenario implies an increased need for transmission grids. For each of these Building Blocks, specific challenges for the 2050 horizon can however be identified, complementing this overall challenge.
Table 3 : The specific challenges of the building block.
4. Governance Model evaluation and regulatory options for governance models
For the evaluation of the governance models, five objectives which a governance model should pursue are identified for this study. These are: Sustainability, Competitiveness, Security of Supply, Socio-political acceptability and Effectiveness. Consequently a set of Assessment Criteria defined for each Building Block, per objective has been set-up, which enables to rank the performance of each Governance Model according to its performance. These criteria relate to the allocation of roles and responsibilities, the interactions and coordination among the different stakeholders and their interdependences, complexity, perception of risks, efficiency, stability, suitability to a European context, implementability, etc. This criteria assessment has taken into account specific weights for each of the five e-Highway2050 scenarios.
Despite this scenario-specific analysis, the same Governance Model (or a combination of several ones) has been identified as best to tackle the challenges for 2050. Therefore a number of robust regulatory options for 2050 are put forward per Building Block (BB), which could be considered for future European regulation, independently of the scenario considered for the development of the transmission network.
The overall list can be consulted in the study, below is a summary of the main ones.
Table 4 : Summary of main regulatory options for 2050
References
[1] T. Anderski, Amprion; F. Careri, RSE; N. Grisey, RTE; G. Migliavacca, RSE; D. Orlic, EKC; G. Sanchis, RTE. e-Highway2050: a research project analysing very long term investment needs for the pan-European transmission system. Cigre Paris. Submitted to Cigre Paris, August 2015
[2] ENTSO-E, “Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP)”, www.entsoe.eu/major-projects/ten-year-network-development-plan/, 2014
[3] Bernard De Clercq, Elia Group et alia, deliverable D5.1 Towards a governance model for the European electricity transmission network in 2050, December 2015