Minute reserve
The minute reserve covers bigger system imbalances. It is requested manually by the TSO and should decrease the need form secondary control reserve.
Historical development of minute reserve
Since 1 December 2006, German transmission system operators (TSOs) have been meeting their minute reserve (MR) requirements through shared calls for tenders issued on the Internet platform regelleistung.net. On this platform, calls for tender are published, offers are processed, and BSPs are informed whether their offers have been accepted or rejected.
On 18/10/2011, the market design that applied until then was revised for the first time and updated again on 13/06/2017. The new market design was introduced in two stages as of 12/07/2018 and 12/07/2019.
As of 02.11.2020 (delivery date 03.11.2020) the balancing energy market was introduced with separate procurement of balancing capacity at the balancing capacity market and balancing energy at the balancing energy market.
The introduction of the balancing energy market is the national basis for the European domestic market for control reserve and corresponds with the requirement in article 16 (5) EB-VO. At the end of the tendering of balancing capacity the BSPs have the possibility to adjust the accepted bids and/or can offer new bids.
The design of the balancing energy market is outlined in § 38 of the modalities for BSPs (MfRRA).
Overview of current business rules:
| Capacity market | Gate Opening: d-7, GCT: 9 h d-1, product length 4 hours |
| Energy Market | Gate Opening: d-1 (ca. 12 h), GCT: t-25, product length 15 minutes |
| Core Share | Countries provide the core share and cross border capacities, no core share within Germany |
| Minimum offer capacity | 1 MW |
| Pooling | possible within control area |
| Indivisible offer | indivisible offer possible |
| Activation | Automatic activation of minute reserve by the common Merit Order List Server (MOLS) |
| Activation Period | full activation within 15 minutes |
| Backup | backup possible |
Additional information
A precondition for taking part in a joint tender is the conclusion of a framework contract between the BSP and connecting TSO following successful pre-qualification, whereby the total prequalified minute reserve of a provider must be at least 1 MW.
The connecting TSO is the TSO in the control area of which the technical units to be marketed by the BSP are connected to the grid, irrespective of the voltage level. This TSO conducts the pre-qualification procedure for technical units (e.g. generating units, controllable consumer loads or storage) in its control area and is the contract party of the BSP whose technical units are located in the control area of the connecting TSO. If a BSP markets technical units in several control areas, a framework agreement has to be concluded with all respective connecting TSOs.
Each BSP has its own secure area for the submission of offers and access to the allocation results on the Internet platform. The next-day tendering procedure takes place each calendar day.