On February 10, 2025, ESO successfully joined the PICASSO platform and became the first electricity transmission operator in Southeast Europe connected to the European balancing platform, the system operator said in a publication. The European platform focuses on cross-border exchange of balancing energy from activated reserves for automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) and power exchange. The international PICASSO project involves 26 transmission system operators, part of the European association of transmission system operators ENTSO-E.
The PICASSO platform provides common rules for the activation of balancing energy from automatic frequency restoration reserve and power exchange for all connected TSOs.
One of the key changes that will take place after joining the platform is the method of pricing balancing energy when the automatic frequency restoration reserve (aFRR) service is activated. The platform will collect and rank all available balancing energy offers from aFRR according to the offered price and a common priority list (CMOL) will be generated. The operation of the European balancing platform optimises the activation of balancing energy between the individual control units in the synchronous area of Continental Europe in the framework of cross-border exchanges, taking into account the available transmission capacities.
With the successful connection to the PICASSO platform, the Bulgarian Electricity System Operator fulfils its legal obligations under Article 21 of the European Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2195 of 23 November 2017 establishing a guideline on electricity balancing.The Bulgarian Electricity System Operator is the first in the South East Europe region to join PICASSO and currently has no common electricity border with TSOs effectively participating in the project. Until at least one transmission operator from neighbouring countries joins the platform, there will be no real exchange of balancing energy from automatic frequency restoration reserve and power exchange (aFRR). For this objective reason, the formation of the marginal price for Bulgaria used as a pricing factor in the Methodology for Balancing Energy Pricing will continue to be determined by the activated local sources of balancing services.
The connection of ESO to the European balancing platform PICASSO is a key step in the process of building a sustainable and efficient common European energy market.
Source: ESO
