Compliment of the Month: ACER Approves Flexibility Needs Assessment Methodology

In our "Compliment of the Month" series, we'll be highlighting a stakeholder who, in their own way, is accelerating the implementation of energy storage. For April, we'd like to commend the European Agency for the Coordination of Energy Regulators (ACER) for its recent approval of the Flexibility Needs Assessment Methodology. This step represents a significant milestone for energy storage, as it establishes a transparent and harmonized way to assess and document flexibility needs across Member States.

Methodology Flexibility Needs Assessment

The European Commission requires EU Member States to conduct an annual Flexibility Needs Assessment to gain insight into European and national flexibility needs. To achieve this, a uniform methodology across Member States is essential. ACER has designed this methodology, which provides a solid foundation for both transmission and distribution system operators to carefully and consistently analyze future flexibility needs. It not only considers traditional system elements but also clearly distinguishes between network flexibility and system flexibility. This allows for a much more precise determination of where and when flexibility solutions are needed, and which technologies can make the greatest contribution.

The role of energy storage within this methodology

This development is particularly significant for the energy storage sector. The methodology recognizes that storage is a fully-fledged and versatile source of flexibility that can help alleviate congestion, support grid stability, and enable much greater integration of renewable energy sources. By explicitly including energy storage in the systematic assessment of flexibility needs, greater certainty and clarity is created for investors and developers. This contributes to creating the right market conditions and policy frameworks to promote storage technologies.

Another key advantage of this approach is that the analyses are not standalone, but are aligned with existing European and national studies, such as the European Resource Adequacy Assessment (ERAA) and its national equivalents. This allows for efficient use of existing data and expertise, while ensuring consistency and comparability across Member States.

Energy Storage NL: methodology provides a good signal for national storage targets

The approved methodology lays a solid foundation for the next steps to be taken at the European level. Within the next few years, Member States will submit their flexibility reports and set the resulting targets for non-fossil flexibility.

Energy Storage NL sees this as a strong signal that Europe is not only committed to more renewable energy but also creating the necessary preconditions for truly efficient and sustainable use of this energy. Energy Storage NL has long been urging the national government to consider a national target for energy storage, so that the future role of energy storage and the necessary governance and coordination for this are more concretely incorporated into policy. The industry association therefore now sees support from the Flexibility Needs Assessment and the development of this methodology, which must also properly address energy storage. Energy Storage NL therefore also calls on policymakers to proactively address its implementation and to begin working now on the national implementation of the Flexibility Needs Assessment.