How do I get market access in Germany as a balance responsible party (BRP) for electricity?
Short answer: You set up a German balancing group (Bilanzkreis): codes from BDEW, a registration in the market master data register, a balancing group contract with one of the four transmission system operators, collateral, and working scheduling, market communication and settlement. That takes three to six months. Or you start inside an existing balancing group with BRP-as-a-Service and are live in weeks.
Step 1: Choose your model
There are three ways to get there. They differ in who holds the BRP role and who runs the daily work.
Model | Who is the BRP | Who runs operations | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own balancing group, own operations | You | You | Traders and suppliers with their own team |
| Own balancing group, outsourced software and operations | You | You, with a platform or service provider | Most new BRPs: control without building TSO integrations |
| BRP-as-a-Service | Your service provider | Your service provider | Fast entry, pilots, smaller portfolios |
A BRP is not the same as a BSP. Providing FCR, aFRR or mFRR needs a separate prequalification as balancing service provider.
Step 2: Get your codes and registrations
- BDEW code number: 13 digits, issued by BDEW. German market communication identifies every market role by it or by a GLN, so you need one of the two.
- EIC code: the European identifier used in schedules, issued in Germany by BDEW as local issuing office. You need one for yourself as a market participant and one for each balancing group.
- Market master data register (Marktstammdatenregister): registration as balance responsible party within one month of starting the activity. The entries are public.
- REMIT registration with ACER: if your activity makes you a wholesale market participant; in Germany through the Bundesnetzagentur's portal.
Step 3: Sign the balancing group contract
Germany has four control areas: 50Hertz (north and east, including Berlin and Hamburg), Amprion (west), TenneT Germany (from the north to Bavaria) and TransnetBW (Baden-Württemberg). A balancing group belongs to one control area. The contract follows a standard set by the Bundesnetzagentur and is largely the same with all four TSOs. The TSO checks your credit and asks for collateral, usually a bank guarantee or a cash deposit. Start this early: it often takes longest.
Step 4: Set up scheduling
Every exchange of energy between balancing groups needs a schedule at the TSO: day-ahead by 14:30, intraday changes up to shortly before delivery, day-after corrections until 16:00. The format is ESS (ENTSO-E Scheduling System). You test with the TSO before go-live. More: scheduling explained (German).
Step 5: Set up market communication and settlement
Settlement data reaches you from every grid operator with connections in your balancing group, in EDIFACT messages over AS4, under the rules of MaBiS. Formats change twice a year, on 1 April and 1 October. You need a system that sends and reads all of it, and someone who checks allocation lists and imbalance every day. More: market communication and MaBiS settlement (German).
Step 6: Go live and survive the first settlement
The first delivery month shows whether allocations, schedules and metering data fit together. Plan the first two settlements as part of the project, not as routine operations.
What it costs
Collateral depending on your portfolio, software or services, people for daily operations, and imbalance costs in the first months while forecasts and schedules settle in. The hidden cost is the twice-yearly format change.
Software or service?
See which software and services you can use for a German balancing group, including five questions to ask every provider.
How Engrate and n:lead do it
Engrate is an API platform for German market access: scheduling for all four TSOs, market communication, MaBiS settlement data and imbalance monitoring, for companies that hold their own balancing group. Cloover chose Engrate as its BRP IT service provider in Germany and went live in weeks. n:lead offers BRP-as-a-Service on the Engrate platform, for companies that want to trade before they hold their own balancing group. More: Energy Market Communication.