↓Skip to main content
  1. Knowledge/

Balancing Groups

·423 words·2 mins· ·
Balancing Groups Imbalance Settlement
Authors
  ↪︎ Franziska Ackerl
Table of Contents

Balancing groups are central elements in the Austrian electricity market, ensuring that electricity consumption and generation remain balanced. In case of unforeseen deviations, imbalance settlement is used to cover the difference. This article provides an overview of how balancing groups work and their importance for grid stability.

Balancing Groups
#

Balancing groups are virtual groups that bring together electricity producers and suppliers. Each balancing group is obliged to keep electricity consumption and generation within the group balanced. For this purpose, it prepares forecasts for the expected electricity generation and consumption of the following day.1 2

Imbalance Settlement
#

If an unforeseen deviation from the forecast occurs that the balancing group cannot compensate for itself, the missing or surplus amount of energy must be covered by imbalance settlement. This offsets the difference between the planned and actual feed-in or withdrawal from the grid.

There are numerous balancing groups in the Austrian control area. The combined imbalance settlement of all these groups determines the need for balancing reserve, which the control area manager APG must provide. The total amount of imbalance settlement required can be significantly higher than the actual balancing reserve deployed, as some deviations cancel each other out within the balancing groups. Regardless of how much balancing reserve is ultimately used, each balancing group must pay for its own forecast deviation. Each balancing group has a balancing group representative who represents the group and is liable for the amount of imbalance settlement incurred.1 3 2

The central entity responsible for handling imbalance settlement in the Austrian electricity market is Austrian Power Clearing and Settlement AG (APCS), which acts as the balancing group coordinator. APCS determines and settles the difference between the planned and actual grid feed-in or withdrawal for each balancing group.1 4

Difference between Imbalance Settlement and Balancing Reserve
#

In summary, imbalance settlement compensates for forecast deviations of individual balancing groups and is charged to them. Balancing reserve, on the other hand, is used to stabilize the entire electricity grid when the forecast deviations within the balancing groups cause an imbalance in the control area as a whole. Simply put, the forecast deviation within a balancing group corresponds to imbalance settlement, while the forecast deviation across the entire control area corresponds to balancing reserve.3

Further Information
#

  1. APG: Austrian Electricity Market Model ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎

  2. Next Kraftwerke: Ausgleichsenergie ↩︎ ↩︎

  3. E-Control: Balancing Reserve and Balancing Energy ↩︎ ↩︎

  4. APCS: Tasks ↩︎

Hinweis: AIT übernimmt keine Gewähr für die Vollständigkeit, Richtigkeit und Aktualität der Angaben. Der vorliegende Beitrag dient lediglich der Information. Daher liegen alle Entscheidungen, welche auf Informationen dieser Website beruhen, einzig und allein im Verantwortungsbereich des Nutzers. AIT haftet insbesondere nicht für unmittelbare, konkrete Schäden oder Folgeschäden oder sonstige Schäden jeglicher Art, die – aus welchem Grund auch immer – im Zusammenhang mit dem indirekten oder direkten Gebrauch der auf dieser Website bereitgestellten Informationen entstehen.