Launched at the end of June 2020, the call for tenders for contracting a part of the manual frequency restoration and replacement reserves required for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2021 led to the selection of eight companies by RTE: Agregio, Alpiq Energie France, EDF, Energy Pool Développement, Engie, Flexcity, Smart Grid Energy and Solvay Energy Services.

The need expressed by RTE (1000MW) has been fully met. The total amount of the contracting is 8.5 M€, with a manual frequency restoration reserve price of 8.3 k€/MW/year (compared to 5.6 in 2020) and a replacement reserve price of 7.3 k€/MW/year (compared to 3.9 in 2020).

The 2021 annual call for tenders is marked by the decrease in the volume sought (1000 MW compared to 1500 MW previously in accordance with the terms approved by the CRE), the decrease in the number of tender products, the complete overhaul of the arrangements for the approval of capacities and the simplification of the failures and penalties schemes.

As a reminder, the remaining 500 MW will be contracted through a day-ahead call for tenders, initially scheduled for 1 January 2021. However, due to the health crisis, delays in the developments required to set up daily contracting mean that RTE cannot guarantee the launch of this daily contracting by 1 January 2021. An additional call for tenders will be held by the end of the year to cover the residual need.

Through this call for tenders, industries, storage facilities and generation units participating in manual frequency restoration and rapid reserves benefit from additional remuneration, in exchange for permanent provision of their balancing capacity (24 hours/day and 7 days/week). Through this means they contribute to the safety of operation and management of the supply-demand balance of the power system.

Both winners and non-winners of the call for tenders can still be remunerated for their capacity through the capacity mechanism. For this, they will need to obtain certification before the deadline date for certification for the 2021 delivery year.

For more information, see the release on the launch of the call for tenders 2021 or the page dedicated to manual frequency restoration and replacement reserve on the RTE customer service portal. Weekly marginal prices, retained volumes and data relating to anonymous bids are published here.

For any questions, please contact marketservices@rte-france.com

August 04, 2020