Programme responsibility

Programme responsibility is the responsibility of customers (with the exception of protected customers) and licence holders to draw up, or to have drawn up, programmes for the production, transmission and consumption of electricity for the benefit of grid administrators, and to act in accordance with these programmes.

Why implement a system of programme responsibility?

In the Netherlands, market parties are free to buy or sell electrical energy from or to whomever they wish. Market parties enter into contractual purchase and sale relationships in order to execute these transactions. As part of these contracts, the parties can agree on daily performance arrangements (supply instructions or blanket orders).

The previously mentioned performance arrangements result in transmissions over the electricity grid. In practice, the actual production and/or consumption of electricity is not always entirely in line with the performance arrangements. A system is therefore needed to settle any differences between the transactions and the actual production or consumption of electricity. In the Netherlands, we have chosen to adopt a system of programme responsibility. This means that TenneT determines the differences and ensures that they are settled.

How does the system work?

Parties authorised by TenneT (so‑called Programme Responsible Parties or PRPs for short) inform TenneT on a daily basis about the transactions with other PRPs that they have planned for the next day. The sum of all transactions entered into by each PRP is called an Energy Programme or E Programme. TenneT checks all E Programmes for consistency.

The regional grid administrators notify TenneT of the amount of electricity that each PRP has actually consumed and/or supplied. The difference between the amounts recorded in the Energy Programme and the total of the actual measured values of each PRP is called the imbalance.

Forms of programme responsibility

The Electricity Act stipulates that all connected parties must arrange their own programme responsibility. The System Code states that connected parties can assign this responsibility to a legal entity recognised by TenneT and for so far they are recognized as program responsible party.

There are two types of recognition: trade recognition and full recognition. The System Code lists the requirements that a legal entity must meet in order to be recognised by TenneT. The applicant must:

• possess the required technical and administrative expertise and the like, including the ability to handle the electronic messages used to submit 
  E Programmes;
• issue a financial guarantee;
• enter into an agreement with TenneT.         

Full recognition means that a recognised legal entity is allowed to bear programme responsibility for grid connections. The entity is not allowed to do this in the case of trade recognition.

Downloads

General explanatory notes on programme responsibility (pdf 65,36 Kb)