National Energy Regulatory Council (NERC), with adherence to the European Union's (EU) Clean Energy Package, approved rules for distribution system operator and transmission system operator (hereinafter – operators) authorization to own, develop, manage or operate energy storage facilities.
The rules include:
- the process by which requests to own, develop, manage or operate energy storage facilities by the operators are handled and evaluated by NERC;
- binding guidelines on procurement clauses to help operators ensure a fair tendering procedure when the operators seek to control storage facilities on an exceptional basis;
- the terms and conditions under which NERC would carry out public consultation on the existing energy storage facilities in order to assess the potential availability and interest of other parties in investing in such facilities;
- the binding guidelines on tenders for operator owned energy storage facility ownership transfer to the market.
The Law on Electricity of the Republic of Lithuania states that operators shall not own, develop, manage, or operate energy storage facilities, apart from some exceptional basis as stated in this law. As such, the exceptional basis will be facilitated in accordance with the law and conditions established in these Rules approved by NERC. These provisions are meant to ensure that energy storage facilities in Lithuania would be developed only as a commercial and competitive activity by market participants, whose price of services is not regulated. Operators would be able to develop such storage facilities only on exceptional basis when it is required to ensure efficient, reliable, and secure operation of the system.
The rules set out mandatory requirements for tendering process for the sale of storage facilities and allow the operator to recover the residual value of their investment in energy storage facilities.
The rules do not apply to companies associated or related with the operator.
You can find out more about NERC's Council hearing of 2022-02-17 here (Lithuanian). You can also find the full text of the document here (Lithuanian).
