ENTSO-ESystem Operations
The System Operation specifies what transmission system operators should do in managing their grid. The fact that the generation mix in Europe is integrating more and more renewables, that there is more and more interconnections and cross-border competition has been considered in the System Operation Guideline. It lays the ground for the next power system and for example makes regional coordination a legal obligation for grid operators.
Current Status Entered into force Current consolidated version: 15/03/2021 Read the guideline
Published Regulation
The published network codes become regulations. Use this section for a handy way to jump to a particular article of the network code.
Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1485
establishing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation
- Article 1 - Subject matter
- Article 2 - Scope
- Article 3 - Definitions
- Article 4 - Objectives and regulatory aspects
- Article 5 - Terms and conditions or methodologies of TSOs
- Article 6 - Approval of terms and conditions or methodologies of TSOs
- Article 7 - Amendments to the terms and conditions or methodologies of TSOs
- Article 8 - Publication of terms and conditions or methodologies on internet
- Article 9 - Recovery of costs
- Article 10 - Stakeholder involvement
- Article 11 - Public consultation
- Article 12 - Confidentiality obligations
- Article 13 - Agreements with TSOs not bound by this Regulation
- Article 14 - Monitoring
- Article 15 - Annual report on operational security indicators
- Article 16 - Annual report on load-frequency control
- Article 17 - Annual report on regional coordination assessment
- Article 18 - Classification of system states
- Article 19 - Monitoring and determination of system states by TSOs
- Article 20 - Remedial actions in system operation
- Article 21 - Principles and criteria applicable to remedial actions
- Article 22 - Categories of remedial actions
- Article 23 - Preparation, activation and coordination of remedial actions
- Article 24 - Availability of TSO's means, tools and facilities
- Article 25 - Operational security limits
- Article 26 - Security plan for critical infrastructure protection
- Article 27 - Obligations of all TSOs regarding voltage limits
- Article 28 - Obligations of SGUs concerning voltage control and reactive power management in system operation
- Article 29 - Obligations of all TSOs concerning voltage control and reactive power management in system operation
- Article 30 - Short-circuit current
- Article 31 - Short-circuit current calculation and related measures
- Article 32 - Power flow limits
- Article 33 - Contingency lists
- Article 34 - Contingency analysis
- Article 35 - Contingency handling
- Article 36 - General requirements on protection
- Article 37 - Special protection schemes
- Article 38 - Dynamic stability monitoring and assessment
- Article 39 - Dynamic stability management
- Article 40 - Organisation, roles, responsibilities and quality of data exchange
- Article 41 - Structural and forecast data exchange
- Article 42 - Real-time data exchange
- Article 43 - Structural data exchange
- Article 44 - Real-time data exchange
- Article 45 - Structural data exchange
- Article 46 - Scheduled data exchange
- Article 47 - Real-time data exchange
- Article 48 - Structural data exchange
- Article 49 - Scheduled data exchange
- Article 50 - Real-time data exchange
- Article 51 - Data exchange between TSOs and DSOs concerning significant power generating modules
- Article 52 - Data exchange between TSOs and transmission-connected demand facilities
- Article 53 - Data exchange between TSOs and distribution-connected demand facilities or third parties participating in demand response
- Article 54 - Responsibility of the SGUs
- Article 55 - Tasks of TSOs regarding system operation
- Article 56 - Purpose and responsibilities
- Article 57 - Performing operational tests and analysis
- Article 58 - Training program
- Article 59 - Training conditions
- Article 60 - Training coordinators and trainers
- Article 61 - Certification of system operator employees in charge of real-time operation
- Article 62 - Common language for communication between the system operator employees in charge of real time operation
- Article 63 - Cooperation between TSOs on training
- Article 64 - General provisions regarding individual and common grid models
- Article 65 - Year-ahead scenarios
- Article 66 - Year-ahead individual grid models
- Article 67 - Year-ahead common grid models
- Article 68 - Updates of year-ahead individual and common grid models
- Article 69 - Week-ahead individual and common grid models
- Article 70 - Methodology for building day-ahead and intraday common grid models
- Article 71 - Quality control for grid models
- Article 72 - Operational security analysis in operational planning
- Article 73 - Year-ahead up to and including week-ahead operational security analysis
- Article 74 - Day-ahead, intraday and close to real-time operational security analysis
- Article 75 - Methodology for coordinating operational security analysis
- Article 76 - Proposal for regional operational security coordination
- Article 77 - Organisation for regional operational security coordination
- Article 78 - Regional operational security coordination
- Article 79 - Common grid model building
- Article 80 - Regional outage coordination
- Article 81 - Regional adequacy assessment
- Article 82 - Outage coordination objective
- Article 83 - Regional coordination
- Article 84 - Methodology for assessing the relevance of assets for outage coordination
- Article 85 - Lists of relevant power generating modules and relevant demand facilities
- Article 86 - Update of the lists of relevant power generating modules and relevant demand facilities
- Article 87 - Lists of relevant grid elements
- Article 88 - Update of the list of relevant grid elements
- Article 89 - Appointment of outage planning agents
- Article 90 - Treatment of relevant assets located in a distribution system or in a closed distribution system
- Article 91 - Variations to deadlines for the year-ahead outage coordination
- Article 92 - General provisions on availability plans
- Article 93 - Long-term indicative availability plans
- Article 94 - Provision of year-ahead availability plan proposals
- Article 95 - Year-ahead coordination of the availability status of relevant assets for which the outage planning agent is not a TSO taking part in an outage coordination region, nor a DSO or a CDSO
- Article 96 - Year-ahead coordination of the availability status of relevant assets for which the outage planning agent is a TSO taking part in an outage coordination region, a DSO or a CDSO
- Article 97 - Provision of preliminary year-ahead availability plans
- Article 98 - Validation of year-ahead availability plans within outage coordination regions
- Article 99 - Final year-ahead availability plans
- Article 100 - Updates to the final year-ahead availability plans
- Article 101 - Management of the ‘testing’ status of relevant assets
- Article 102 - Procedure for handling forced outages
- Article 103 - Real-time execution of the availability plans
- Article 104 - Forecast for control area adequacy analysis
- Article 105 - Control area adequacy analysis
- Article 106 - Control area adequacy up to and including week-ahead
- Article 107 - Control area adequacy in day-ahead and intraday
- Article 108 - Ancillary services
- Article 109 - Reactive power ancillary services
- Article 110 - Establishment of scheduling processes
- Article 111 - Notification of schedules within scheduling areas
- Article 112 - Coherence of schedules
- Article 113 - Provision of information to other TSOs
- Article 114 - General provisions for ENTSO for Electricity operational planning data environment
- Article 115 - Individual grid models, common grid models and operational security analysis
- Article 116 - Outage coordination
- Article 117 - System adequacy
- Article 118 - Synchronous area operational agreements
- Article 119 - LFC block operational agreements
- Article 120 - LFC area operational agreement
- Article 121 - Monitoring area operational agreement
- Article 122 - Imbalance netting agreement
- Article 123 - Cross-border FRR activation agreement
- Article 124 - Cross-border RR activation agreement
- Article 125 - Sharing agreement
- Article 126 - Exchange agreement
- Article 127 - Frequency quality defining and target parameters
- Article 128 - FRCE target parameters
- Article 129 - Criteria application process
- Article 130 - Frequency quality evaluation data
- Article 131 - Frequency quality evaluation criteria
- Article 132 - Data collection and delivery process
- Article 133 - Synchronous area monitor
- Article 134 - LFC block monitor
- Article 135 - Information on load and generation behaviour
- Article 136 - Ramping period within the synchronous area
- Article 137 - Ramping restrictions for active power output
- Article 138 - Mitigation
- Article 139 - Basic structure
- Article 140 - Process activation structure
- Article 141 - Process responsibility structure
- Article 142 - Frequency containment process
- Article 143 - Frequency restoration process
- Article 144 - Reserve replacement process
- Article 145 - Automatic and manual frequency restoration process
- Article 146 - Imbalance netting process
- Article 147 - Cross-border FRR activation process
- Article 148 - Cross-border RR activation process
- Article 149 - General requirements for cross-border control processes
- Article 150 - TSO notification
- Article 151 - Infrastructure
- Article 152 - System states related to system frequency
- Article 153 - FCR dimensioning
- Article 154 - FCR technical minimum requirements
- Article 155 - FCR prequalification process
- Article 156 - FCR provision
- Article 157 - FRR dimensioning
- Article 158 - FRR minimum technical requirements
- Article 159 - FRR prequalification process
- Article 160 - RR dimensioning
- Article 161 - RR minimum technical requirements
- Article 162 - RR prequalification process
- Article 163 - Exchange of FCR within a synchronous area
- Article 164 - Sharing of FCR within a synchronous area
- Article 165 - General requirements for the exchange of FRR and RR within a synchronous area
- Article 166 - General requirements for sharing FRR and RR within a synchronous area
- Article 167 - Exchange of FRR within a synchronous area
- Article 168 - Sharing of FRR within a synchronous area
- Article 169 - Exchange of RR within a synchronous area
- Article 170 - Sharing of RR within a synchronous area
- Article 171 - General requirements
- Article 172 - Frequency coupling between synchronous areas
- Article 173 - Exchange of FCR between synchronous areas
- Article 174 - Sharing of FCR between synchronous areas
- Article 175 - General requirements for sharing of FRR and RR between synchronous areas
- Article 176 - Exchange of FRR between synchronous areas
- Article 177 - Sharing of FRR between synchronous areas
- Article 178 - Exchange of RR between synchronous areas
- Article 179 - Sharing of RR between synchronous areas
- Article 180 - Cross-border activation process for FRR/RR
- Article 181 - Time control process
- Article 182 - Reserve providing groups or units connected to the DSO grid
- Article 183 - General transparency requirements
- Article 184 - Information on operational agreements
- Article 185 - Information on frequency quality
- Article 186 - Information on the load-frequency control structure
- Article 187 - Information on FCR
- Article 188 - Information on FRR
- Article 189 - Information on RR
- Article 190 - Information on sharing and exchange
- Article 191 - Amendments to contracts and general terms and conditions
- Article 192 - Entry into force
SYS related Deliverables
European Stakeholder Committee
System Operations
Last Meeting Documents
History & Development of the network code
The System Operation Guideline is one of the network codes/guidelines drafted under the Third Energy Package. In 2015, the European Commission, ACER and ENTSO-E agreed to merge the three operational network codes into a single System Operation Guideline during their preparatory work for Comitology.
The new guideline is composed of the former network codes on Operational Planning and Scheduling (NC OPS), Operational Security (NC OS), and Load Frequency Control and Reserve (NC LFCR).
On 1 December the European Commission published the version of the Regulation establishing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation that was sent to electricity cross-border committee. The first meeting of the electricity cross-border committee on the System Operation Guideline is scheduled on 11 December 2015.
On 4 May 2016 the Member States gave a favourable opinion on the Draft Regulation establishing a guideline on electricity transmission system operation – the System Operation Guideline.
Download the provisional final version of the text