For a given year, the methodology for determining the total manual frequency restoration reserve need (approximately 1000 MW of mFRR) and respectively replacement reserve need (approximately 500 MW RR) is given in the Load-Frequency Control Block operational agreement. For a given day, the manual frequency restoration reserve need is the remaining need to be covered for the day after deducting the volume of manual frequency restoration reserve allocated at the annual tender (two thirds of the total requirement of 1000 MW for 2021), added to any potential manual frequency restoration reserve volumes terminated by the market participants awarded the calls for tenders following any amendment of the initial commitments. For a given day, the replacement reserve need is the remaining need to be covered for the day after deducting the volume of replacement reserve allocated at the annual tender (two thirds of the total requirement of 500 MW for 2021), added to any potential replacement reserve volumes terminated by the market participants awarded the calls for tenders following any amendment of the initial commitments.

The aFRR dimensioning method is described in the RTE Load-Frequency Control Block operational agreement.

To ensure a balance between supply and demand, RTE contracts power reserve availabilities from balancing service providers and reserve providers.

1. Frequency Containment Reserve and Automated Frequency Restoration Reserve are procured respectively through a European day-ahead tender (FCR Cooperation) and a national day-ahead tender. Reserve providers are granted a remuneration according the conditions laid down in the Frequency Ancillary Terms and Conditions. The published price is the marginal price calculated for the quarter hourly interval.
    
2. Tertiary reserve is procured through a tender from balancing service providers. It aims at ensuring a minimum volume of tertiary reserve available in 13 min (about 100MW) and a volume of tertiary reserve available in 30 min (about 500 MW).  A yearly tender takes place every year for the next civil year from the 1st of January to the 31st of December. Then, a daily tender comes in addition to the yearly procurement, by  contracting  reserves in D-1 for day D. Balancing service providers are granted a remuneration, calculated on the offered volume and the full activation time. The published price is the marginal price calculated for the quarter hourly interval. 

Margins represent a volume of capacity available for RTE to be used to cope with generation or consumption contingency consequences. They are thus one of the essential components of system control under safe operating

RTE proposes on this web page to display the available upward and downward margins, required margins (risk 1%) as well as France’s forecasted imbalance.

Margins are calculated from D-1 and updated throughout the day, based on the best hypothesis at our disposal.

The volume of "mFRR" and "specific RR" corresponds to the aggregation of specific balancing energy bids submitted on the balancing mechanism. 

The volume of “RR standard" and “RR standard restricted" corresponds respectively to the aggregated volume of RR standard bids shared on the TERRE platform and the aggregated volume of unavailable RR standard bids. 

The information message (known as an alert message in the MA-RE Terms and Conditions) is sent as of D-1 when the usable volume of capacity available on the balancing mechanism taking into account the forecast imbalance is less than the required margin. The aim of this message is to inform BRPs of potential imbalance at peak demand so that they may take the required actions and balancing service providers, so that they may submit additional offers to RTE.

The message of potential need for activation of additional balancing bids (known as downgraded mode in the MA-RE Terms and Conditions) is transmitted based on the same criterion as the previous information message. This message aims to inform balancing service providers, as close as possible to the operational window, of the potential activation of their additional bids and to inform balance responsible parties of a potential impact on the imbalance settlement price of the activation of more expensive bids.