With a view to guaranteeing secure grid operations, Elia, among other things, ensures coordination of technical units based on generation schedules and residual flexibility provided by Scheduling Agents (SA).
Elia uses, among other things, active power schedules for technical units received after the closure of the day-ahead market to perform its security analyses. These analyses allow for any congestion risks on the grid to be identified.
Remedial actions
Knowing the generation schedules and flexibility of every generation unit helps to determine any remedial action that Elia could take to eliminate risks. Elia can ask producers to change generation schedules by increasing or decreasing active power output or even by requesting that a technical unit be started up or shut down, if necessary and possible. Elia compensates producers for such requests.
Elia currently primarily receives schedules and flexibility information for generation and storage units with an installed capacity of at least 25 MW that are connected to the Elia grid. Other generation units may also be included in a contract in order to assist with the coordination process carried out by Elia (units liable to seriously affect the Elia grid) or offer specific system services (if a contract for the Scheduling Agent is a prerequisite for provision of the service).