Balancing energy
Under balancing refers to the electrical energy (gas: thermal energy ) to the consumption of a balancing group is different (in Austria and Switzerland "balance group") from the forecast consumption. It is the counterpart on the billing market to the control power (procurement market).
Any number of extraction ("consumers") and feed-in points ("producers") are combined in a balancing group. As a rule, the metering points of an electricity trader within a control area or a gas trader within a market area form a balancing group. The balancing group managers state in advance the forecast consumption of their balancing group for a period of time (electricity: usually 15 minutes, gas: 60 minutes). The forecast consumption assigned to a balancing group must be precisely covered by feed-in (production or purchase of energy).
The unpredictable fluctuations in consumption or in the feed-in of the balancing group that occur during the period (quarter of an hour for electricity; hour or day for natural gas) are balanced by the transmission system operator (electricity) / market area manager (gas) with positive or negative balancing energy. However, since there are numerous balancing groups and positive and negative balance deviations of the individual balancing groups occur at the same time, these partially offset each other. The underfunding of one balancing group can be compensated by the overfunding of another balancing group.
Only the deviations of the withdrawals from the feed-in / generation for the entire control area (electricity) / the entire market area (gas) have to be compensated for with control power. In the case of a balancing group, the balancing energy always arises when the balancing group is not balanced, even if another balancing group compensates it. The amounts of balanced balancing energy therefore usually exceed the balancing energy actually required many times over.
In a monthly balancing group billing, the excess and deficit in the balancing group are assessed using balancing energy prices. When calculating the balancing energy costs for electricity, a uniform balance balancing energy price (reBAP) across control areas is determined for every quarter of an hour of the month, which is essentially calculated from the control energy used and the control energy costs across all control areas. The price can be negative as well as positive, so that quarter-hourly surpluses (sale of balancing energy) and shortfalls (purchase of balancing energy) can generate costs as well as revenues for balancing energy.
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- Joachim Müller-Kirchenbauer, Ines Zenke: Competitive market for control and balancing energy (PDF, 230 kB) , in: Energiewirtschaftliche Tagesfragen , Volume 51 (2001), No. 11