As per the definition provided by the European MSP Platform [@North] and the CPMR North Sea Commission [@Membe15], the North Sea region consists of eight countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom.
The nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) classifies territorial units in Europe in different levels [@NUTS]:
- NUTS 0: country-level
- NUTS 1: major socio-economic regions
- NUTS 2: basic regions for the application of regional policies
- NUTS 3: small regions for specific diagnoses
As explained in the problem definition section, short-term operational planning and systems with a high penetration of VRE must be described using data of high temporal and spatial resolutions. Therefore, NUTS 3 territories will be used as a standard in this project for aggregating short-term forecasting data.
This Jupyter notebook lists the NUTS territories in the North Sea region at all four NUTS levels. France is the only North Sea country with overseas territories included in the NUTS data (RUP FR - RÉGIONS ULTRAPÉRIPHÉRIQUES FRANÇAISES), so these were removed accordingly.
Performing the forecasting task at NUTS 3 level would be straightforward if it does not include the electricity market. Since the electricity market is considered in this project, it is important to look at how the bidding zones overlap with NUTS 3 territories.
A bidding zone is the largest geographical area within which market participants are able to exchange energy without capacity allocation [@Biddi14]. According to [@Biddi14], there are three types of bidding zones:
- national borders (e.g., France or the Netherlands) - majority of bidding zones in Europe
- larger than national borders (e.g., Germany and Luxembourg or the Single Electricity Market for the island of Ireland)
- smaller zones within individual countries (e.g., Italy, Norway or Sweden)
The bidding zones in the North Sea electricity markets and surrounding regions are illustrated in @fig:map.
![Bidding zones in the North Sea electricity markets and surrounding regions. Countries in the North Sea region are in blue, while neighbouring contries with interconnections are in purple. Made using a blank SVG map of Europe from Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-4.0) [@Nordw15].](/DrRoad/short-term-forecasting/blob/master/docs/images/market-map.png "Bidding zones in the North Sea electricity markets and surrounding regions. Countries in the North Sea region are in blue, while neighbouring contries with interconnections are in purple. Made using a blank SVG map of Europe from Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-4.0) [@Nordw15].")
{#fig:map}
The power exchanges (market operators) that operate in the North Sea region are APX (Netherlands, United Kingdom), Belpex (Belgium), EEX (Germany, Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden), EPEX (Germany, France), N2EX (United Kingdom) and Nord Pool (Denmark, Norway, Sweden) [@Power], [@Overv16], [@Seem], [@EPEX]. The day-ahead market takes place generally as an hourly auction 24 hours prior to dispatch [@Overv16]. The intra-day market has continuous trading and will operate until two hours and up to five minutes before dispatch [@Overv16].
Both Nord Pool and EPEX are part of the Price Coupling of Regions (PCR) project which aims to develop a single price coupling solution for the calculation of day-ahead electricity prices in Europe, taking into account day-ahead network capacities [@PCRE17].
@Tbl:zones below lists all bidding zones in the North Sea region by country and market operator.
| Country | Markets | Zones1 |
|---|---|---|
| Belgium (BE) | Belpex | BE |
| Germany (DE) | EEX, EPEX | DE-LU |
| Denmark (DK) | EEX, Nord Pool | DK1, DK2 |
| France (FR) | EEX, EPEX | FR |
| Netherlands (NL) | APX | NL |
| Norway (NO) | EEX, Nord Pool | NO1, NO2, NO3, NO4, NO5 |
| Sweden (SE) | EEX, Nord Pool | SE1, SE2, SE3, SE4 |
| United Kingdom (UK) | APX, N2EX | GB, IE-SEM |
: Bidding zones and market operators in the North Sea region. {#tbl:zones}
Prior to 01/10/2018, Germany was part of the DE-AT-LU bidding zone, together with Austria and Luxembourg, which had split into the DE-LU and AT bidding zones, as reported by European Network of Transmission Systems Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) below [@DEATL].
[...] DE-AT-LU bidding zone split on the 23rd of August. BZN|DE-AT-LU will be separated into 2 new bidding zones BZN|DE-LU and BZN|AT.
New bidding zones will be active from the 1st of October, however, first data submissions, like month ahead forecasts, are expected from the 1st of September.
Validity end date for BZN|DE-AT-LU is the end of September 2018. [...]
Mapping bidding zones to NUTS 3 territories is straightforward for Belgium, Germany, France and Netherlands (bidding zone type 1 or 2) -- all NUTS 3 territories in these countries have the same bidding zone.
Denmark and United Kingdom are both conveniently separated into two zones that are easily distinguishable. For Denmark, these are Western Denmark (NUTS IDs containing DK03-DK05) and Southern Denmark (NUTS IDs containing DK01-DK02). For United Kingdom, these are Great Britain (NUTS IDs containing UKC-UKM) and Northern Ireland (NUTS IDs containing UKN).
There is no clear indication of the bidding zone boundaries for Norway and Sweden, so some assumptions were made. Both countries have multiple smaller bidding zones (type 3) with flexible borders [@Europ10], [@List]. This was done to optimise allocation of resources and reduce the overall price of electricity [@Europ10], [@List]. Norway has five zones and Sweden has four zones. By cross-referencing Nord Pool market data [@Seem], NUTS 3 data and county maps of Norway [@Count19] and Sweden [@Count19a], the territories are split into the bidding zones as shown in @tbl:nord. Nord Pool associates each bidding zone with a major reference city in that zone. However, there were six cities for Norway instead of the expected five. Historical Nord Pool market data for Norway suggests that two cities, Trondheim and Molde, have had the same system price since 2003. The ELSPOT area change log [@List] also confirms that Trondheim and Molde are city references for the NO3 bidding zone . Therefore, these two cities are grouped into the same bidding zone, which also satisfies what the maps suggest.
| Bidding zone | Reference cities | Counties | NUTS 3 IDs |
|---|---|---|---|
| NO1 | Oslo | Oslo, Akershus, Hedmark, Oppland, Østfold, Buskerud, Vestfold, Telemark | NO011-034 |
| NO2 | Kristiansand | Aust-Agder, Vest-Agder, Rogaland | NO041-043 |
| NO3 | Trondheim, Molde | Sogn og Fjordane, Møre og Romsdal, Trøndelag | NO052-060 |
| NO4 | Tromsø | Nordland, Troms, Finnmark | NO071-073 |
| NO5 | Bergen | Hordaland | NO051 |
| SE1 | Luleå | Norrbotten | SE332 |
| SE2 | Sundsvall | Gävleborg, Västernorrland, Jämtland, Västerbotten | SE313-331 |
| SE3 | Stockholm | Stockholm, Uppsala, Södermanland, Östergötland, Örebro, Västmanland, Jönköping, Gotland, Västra Götaland, Värmland, Dalarna | SE110-211, SE214, SE232-312 |
| SE4 | Malmö | Kronoberg, Kalmar, Blekinge, Halland, Skåne | SE212-213, SE221-231 |
: Bidding zones and their territories for Norway and Sweden, approximated based on Nord Pool market data [@Seem], [@List], NUTS 3 data and county maps of Norway [@Count19] and Sweden [@Count19a]. {#tbl:nord}
This Jupyter notebook lists all NUTS 3 territories and their bidding zones in the North Sea region, and explains how the different bidding zones were assigned to the territories.
The North Sea region consists of multiple TSOs and cross-border interconnections. These are listed, along with the bidding zones, in @tbl:tso.
| Ctry.2 | TSOs | Cross-border interconnections3 | Bidding zones |
|---|---|---|---|
| BE | Elia System Operator | FR, LU, NL, UK | BE |
| DK | Energinet | DE, NO, SE | DK1, DK2 |
| DE | TransnetBW, TenneT TSO, Amprion, 50Hertz Transmission | AT, CH, CZ, DK, FR, LU, NL, PL, SE | DE-LU |
| FR | Réseau de Transport d'Electricité | BE, CH, DE, ES, IT, UK | FR |
| NL | TenneT TSO | BE, DE, NO, UK | NL |
| NO | Statnett | DK, FI, NL, SE | NO1, NO2, NO3, NO4, NO5 |
| SE | Svenska Kraftnät | DK, FI, DE, LT, NO, PL | SE1, SE2, SE3, SE4 |
| UK | National Grid Electricity Transmission, System Operator for Northern Ireland, Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission, ScottishPower Transmission | BE, FR, IE, NL | GB, IE-SEM |
: TSOs and cross-border interconnections in the North Sea region. Data: European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity [@ENTSO], [@Regio]. {#tbl:tso}
Footnotes
-
Luxembourg (LU); Great Britain (GB); Irish single electricity market (IE-SEM), which includes Republic of Ireland and UK's Northern Ireland. ↩
-
Ctry. - Country; AT - Austria; BE - Belgium; CH - Switzerland; CZ - Czech Republic; DE - Germany; DK - Denmark; ES - Spain; FI - Finland; FR - France; GB - Great Britain; IE - Ireland; IT - Italy; LT - Lithuania; LU - Luxembourg; NL - Netherlands; NO - Norway; PL - Poland; SE - Sweden; SK - Slovakia; UK - United Kingdom; SEM - Single electricity market. ↩
-
These countries are not part of the North Sea region: AT, CH, CZ, ES, FI, IE, IT, LT, LU, PL. ↩