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Capacity reserve

Automatically translated with deepl.com.

The capacity reserve is a reserve that can be used in situations of scarcity on the electricity market.

In accordance with the Energy Industry Act (Section 13e EnWG), the capacity reserve is intended to create a reserve of 2 GW outside the electricity market from the winter half-year 2020/2021. This capacity can be held by generation plants, storage facilities and controllable loads.  

The capacity reserve is necessary to support the system balance in exceptional and unforeseeable situations and thus maintain the balance between electricity generation and consumption.

The capacity reserve is to be used to ensure security of supply if, despite free pricing on the electricity exchange, there is insufficient supply to cover the demand for electrical energy. The plants tied up in the capacity reserve should also, as far as possible, take over the function of the grid reserve. If the plants are located in regions suitable for the grid, the transmission system operators (TSOs) will also request them in cases where it is necessary for system security due to grid congestion.

The German TSOs carry out a joint procurement procedure to form the capacity reserve.

Announcement of the invitation to tender pursuant to Section 11 of the Capacity Reserve Regulation - Bidding deadline December 01, 2023

Under the following link you will find the current information on the tender for the 2024-2026 provision period.

Publications on the 2024-2026 performance period

Publications for the 2022-2024 performance period

Publications on the 2020-2022 performance period


Capacity reserve deployments

Below you will find the publication of the volumes of the capacity reserve activated and called up by the four German transmission system operators. Average and maximum values refer to the respective activation period (usually twelve hours).  

Deployments of systems in the capacity reserve as part of the grid reserve and information on deployment time series for function tests, test calls or test runs can be found in the publication on redispatch.

Kapazitätsreserve


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Relevant electricity exchange pursuant to Section 25 (1) of the Capacity Reserve Regulation

The power exchange that recorded the highest trading volume for hourly contracts for the German price zone on the spot market in the first quarter of the previous calendar year is EPEX SPOT.