Towards a Single Balancing Market for Europe: Imbalance Costs for a 1MW PV Plant in Italy and Spain

The EU Commission within the so-called “balancing guidelines” is oriented towards a common imbalances policy at European level; this policy is still in a definition phase to date. In this framework, this paper studies the imbalance mechanisms currently in force in Italy and Spain; it also identifies the differences between the mechanisms of these two EU Countries and evaluates their implications in the practice. To this aim, the paper illustrates the results of numerical calculations on a real case study, that is a 1MW photovoltaic plant. The numerical calculations take into account the imbalances measured over an entire year and the corresponding costs, in accordance with the Italian and Spanish regulatory framework about imbalances.