Coherency of the European resource adequacy framework

The European Union (EU)’s resource adequacy framework consists of the reliability standard calculation, adequacy assessments and capacity remuneration mechanisms, three pillars which should conspire to deliver a realised adequacy in liberalised markets which is close to that which would be delivered by a central planner minimising total system costs. However, this framework is vulnerable to inconsistencies in the parameters used in each of the three pillars, making the framework internally incoherent and potentially increases system costs. We illustrate and discuss how an inconsistent choice of storage operation can lead to a sub-optimal level of adequacy. However, a consistent storage operation challenges the stated purpose of adequacy assessments in the EU which is to predict adequacy resulting from market operations.