Our cooperation in Europe

Located in the heart of Europe and featuring 41 international interconnection lines, the Swiss transmission grid is closely linked to the European grid. This interconnectedness contributes greatly to the stability of the network and thus to a secure supply of electricity.

The European Union is encouraging the liberalisation of the internal electricity market. Without an electricity agreement, Swissgrid is limited in its cooperation in the developments in the European power market and in its ability to represent Switzerland’s interests. Switzerland is also increasingly being excluded from participation in committees and market platforms. This will have a negative effect on the security of the transmission grid.

TERRE: Platform for schedule activated tertiary control reserves

In autumn 2014, Swissgrid started the cooperation «Trans European Replacement Reserve Exchange» (TERRE) together with other members of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) to create a common market for slow schedule activated tertiary control reserves. On 8 October 2020, Swissgrid went live with the TERRE process. Together with Italy, France, Spain and Portugal, Switzerland is now part of a common market for cross-border exchange of schedule activated tertiary control reserves with an activation lead time of 30 minutes. To date, the EU Commission has not reached a positive decision about Swissgrid’s participation, as the preconditions have not been met yet in its opinion. The TERRE cooperation partners would welcome Swissgrid’s participation for system security reasons.

SAFA: common rules

The European Union is pursuing the goal of completely liberalising the European internal electricity market in order to provide end customers (households and companies) with secure, sustainable, competitive and affordable energy. The prerequisite for efficiently exchanging energy among EU member states is instating binding rules for all parties.

The so-called network codes are decisive for cooperation among the transmission system operators. With the «Synchronous Area Framework Agreement» (SAFA), Continental Europe’s transmission system operators, including Swissgrid, contractually obligated themselves to abide by the network codes as well as the jointly developed implementation rules, which are necessary to ensure operational grid security.