2013/05/13
PRESS RELEASE: EEX Transparency Platform to be Expanded with Power Market Data from Switzerland – swisselectric becomes New Part… read more »
2013/03/19
PRESS RELEASE: Renault makes use of EEX Transparency Data for New Electric Car Leipzig, 19 March 2013 – The French car manuf… read more »
From the perspective of operations in the field of electricity supply, the balancing zone is the grid area which the responsible transmission system operator controls, regulates and monitors. The output imbalances in the balancing zone (differences between planned target and actual values of the exchange of output with other balancing zones) are compensated by the transmission system operator through the activation of provided balancing power which is put out to tender.
Bottleneck output
The bottleneck output of a generating unit corresponds to the continuous output which can be achieved under normal conditions. It is limited by the part of the plant which has the lowest efficiency (bottleneck). Parts of the plant which cannot be used for a short period do not reduce the bottleneck output.
Calculation of the maximum available energy
Net bottleneck output x (annual output – (total of the planned outages during the respective year in hours)
This means it provides a theoretical description of the maximum net electric work which can be produced during a calendar year under consideration of all non-usabilities known until the time of reporting. This parameter cannot be used as a benchmark for scheduled or actual generation.
Cold reserve, preserved
Cold reserve, preserved refers to a generating plant which has been decommissioned but has a valid operating permit and can be used to the full extent from a technical perspective and, which is, however, not operated for other reasons (e.g. long-term fuel shortage, too high fuel prices). Recommissioning requires the preservation measures to be removed and is, hence, not possible right away. For this reason, the output which is part of the preserved cold reserve is not directly available for the market either.
Commissioning stage
Generation plants are not available for commercial purposes during the commissioning stage since the suitability of the respective plant for continuous operation needs to be proven prior to the commercial use of the plant. These suitability tests correspond to technical and official tests. The output generated during the commissioning stage is fed into the public power grid as unsecured output. Reliable ex-ante data on this is not available.
Continuous output
The continuous output of a power generating, transmitting or consuming plant is the maximum output which is provided during proper operation of the plant without restrictions in terms of time and does not affect the unit’s service life (operating time) and safety.
Decommissioning
Permanent and final shut-down of a generating unit on account of the expiry or surrender of the official operating permit.
Degree of coverage
The degree of coverage of the Statutory Publication Requirements is established on the basis of the ratio of the installed capacity reported on the platform and the total installed capacity. For the Voluntary Commitment the degree of coverage is analogously calculated as the ratio of the installed capacity reported on the platform in the voluntary section and the total installed capacity. In this context, the degree of coverage is separately determined for the common German-Austrian market area, for the German balancing areas, for the Austrian balancing area overall and the Czech Republic.
The total installed capacity is adjusted in the course of the year whenever new generation units are put into operation, which are not yet part of the figures used until that time or whenever regulatory authorities publish new figures. This adjustment is made for all new generating units - from 1st May 2011 onwards for the first time.
Power plants in the border area of Austria with an amount of 3.1 GW, which, however, feed power into the balancing zones of Amprion GmbH, Tennet TSO GmbH or TransnetBW GmbH or are balanced within these zones, are part of the installed capacity in Germany. As a result, the installed capacity of the Austrian control area is reduced by 3.1 GW and amounts to 18.7 GW.
Ex-ante values are forecast values which are used for planning the management of actual operations.
Ex-post
Ex-post values are actual values from the operations which can be published and, if required, specified in more detail afterwards. In this context both measured and counter values can be used. If measured values are used (e.g. prompt generation data), these are replaced by counter values from calibrated counters as soon as such data become available.
Generating unit
A generating unit for electricity is an energy conversion system which is directly allocated to the main parts of the plant (e.g. to the steam generator, the turbine and the generator in thermal power plants) under the circuit design.
Installed generation capacity
See net nominal output
Marketing (Predominantly for free / Predominantly not for free)
Plants which are pedominantly not available for free marketing are for instance "must run", customer controlled and other market price controlled plants (plants under CHP law, industrial plants, etc.).
Net nominal output
The net nominal output of a generating unit corresponds to the highest maximum output under nominal conditions, which is delivered to the public supply grid net of the operating and own consumption of the plant. In this context, the facts that the nominal conditions refer to an annual average, i.e. that the seasonal impact (e.g. the cooling water and air inlet temperature) and the own requirements in terms of electricity and steam offset each other, and that ideal-typical conditions during acceptance measurement, such as e.g. special closed loop circuits, have to be converted to normal operating conditions are of essential importance.
Non-available output
The non-available output of a generating unit is the output which cannot be generated at the respective time because of the technical and operational condition of the plant. In as far as possible, additional external influencing factors having an impact on the feed-in of output (e.g. cooling water shortage, short circuits in the supply grid) within the meaning of non-usable output are also taken into account in all relevant publications regarding the non-availability.
The same definition applies analogously with regard to the restriction of the possible maximum off-take of power consuming units.
Operating output
The (gross or net) operating output constitutes the output the plant provides at the respective time.
Power plant
A power plant is a system which is designed to generate electricity by converting energy. A power plant can consist of several generating units.
Power plant operator
Power plant operators are natural persons or legal entities and associations of individuals exercising material influence on the condition and the operation of the power plant.
Primary energy carriers
The following primary energy carriers are differentiated with regard to the publication:
Coal
Garbage
Gas
Lignite
Oil
Others
Pumped storage
Run-of-the-river
Seasonal storage/storages
Solar
Uranium (nuclear energy)
Wind
Pumped storage hydro power plants
Pumped storage hydro power plants comprise generating facilities (turbine operation) and consuming facilities (pump operation), which are used depending on the requirements of the market in which the respective power plant is used. Pumped storage hydro power plants without a natural inlet have an available capacity of 0 MWh since the turbines can only be operated if capacity was created through the operation of the pumps in advance. Pumped storage hydro power plants usually operate in the balancing energy market instead of the power wholesale market, which is relevant for data transparency.
Shut-down
Temporary switching-off of the generation plant for technical, operational or commercial reasons.
Site
A site consists of one or several power plants. Because of historical reasons, different ownership situations or various energy conversion processes the generating units available at one site can also be assigned to several power plants.
Start-up and shut-down ramps
Changes to the output of generating facilities are usually made through increases or reductions of the fuel supply (in the case of wind, water and solar power through changes of quantity, speed, intensity, etc.). A change of the output from 0 to 100% in 0 seconds is physically impossible, changes are made on the basis of plant-specific gradients (speed of output change). The gradients are e.g. established on the basis of the type of construction, construction size, control technology, fuel, operating condition, air pressure, temperature, etc. In case of a default in operation, there are further dependencies e.g. on the basis of safety aspects. As a result, these gradients cannot be planned in advance in the form of ramps but essentially evolve depending on the respective situation. For the wholesale market, the ramp length is basically only relevant in the intraday segment with relevance for the balancing energy market predominating clearly.
Moreover, the usual long start-up and shut-down ramps which are common in the field of nuclear energy are difficult to represent in detail in planning. However, reporting of the expected available output as an average for the day is possible and provided in the context of the “Ex-ante information on the forecast of the available energy and the installed generation capacity of power generating units“ (voluntary commitment of the market participants).
Usable output
The usable output of a generating unit corresponds to the difference between the net nominal output and the output which cannot be fed into the transmission system for technical reasons and/or reasons which lie outside the generating facility. In deviation to the non-available output, the non-usable output also takes reasons for the restriction of the possible output fed into the grid which are external to the generating units into account.
The same definition applies analogously with regard to the possible maximum off-take of power consuming units.
