TSOs reorganise TSC and set up TSCNET Services GmbH

• 13 Transmission System Operators (TSOs) from 10 Continental European countries decided to establish a service company
• The service providing company TSCNET Services was founded under German law, is based in Munich and was registered on 10 November 2014
• TSCNET Services will be an international supplier of tailor-made coordination services for operational planning, forecast data merging, congestion assessment and capacity calculation for the control centres of the TSC TSOs
• In parallel, TSC reorganises to both raise efficiency and to maintain relevant representation of all partners

Certainly, this is a landmark both in TSC’s history and in Europe’s security of power supply: One year after opening the TSC TSOs – Joint Office in Munich, Germany, the ten TSOs from Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Switzerland have founded TSCNET Services GmbH. Each of the TSOs holds an equal share and interest in the company. The other TSC TSOs Denmark, Hungary, and Poland are expected to join as shareholders by the end of 2014.

The new company is a part of TSC’s restructuring plan to anchor lean management simplify its organisation and to streamline the decision-making process. The new organisational structure will be designed to exploit the cooperation’s opportunities and to focus resources. TSC expects to complete most of the substantial actions by the end of 2014.

“The new setup will enable us to render our services more efficiently and to match with new requirements even more quickly,” says Alexander Wirth, who has been appointed Managing Director of TSCNET Services for the start-up phase. Wirth is coming from the TSC member Swissgrid and has been responsible for the implementation and operation of the TSC TSOs – Joint Office in Munich, that now is the new company's place of operations. In the next months, two Managing Directors will be appointed to run the new company.

The management will report to the new Supervisory Board (chaired by Mel Kroon, CEO of TenneT Holding B.V.) and to the Shareholders’ Meeting (chaired by Pierre-Alain Graf, CEO of Swissgrid). There are two new governing bodies at TSC: The Cooperation Board, responsible for strategy, budget and extension of the cooperation, and the Operational Board, responsible for the definition and monitoring of business processes and services including TSCNET Services.

Presently, the TSC TSOs - Joint Office is the place of work for 17 experts from the participating TSOs. They perform 24/7 operational planning coordination tasks and set up cross-border transfer capacity calculation tasks for TSOs in Continental Europe. This should remain unchanged. “Today, my team does an excellent job and we will continually strive to further improve and hone our services in the new setup,” says Wirth.

In the medium run, TSCNET Services plans to provide new services requiring some additional staff. Up to now, the team focusses on supporting the TSOs in their operational planning procedures including congestion forecasts and common security analyses based on the Common Tool for Data Exchange and Security Assessment (CTDS). Other core tasks are moderating the daily teleconference of the participating TSOs and contributing to continuous quality management and improvement processes. In addition to that, comprehensive service extensions in the area of capacity calculation are performed and further extensions are currently being prepared. TSCNET Services should be fully set going by 1 January 2015. “This joint venture really is a key example of how fast European TSOs are tightening their cooperation and have elevated coordination. This has led to a significant increase in security and efficiency of our operations,” Pierre-Alain Graf, CEO of Swissgrid and Chairman of TSC’s Cooperation Board points out.

TSO Security Cooperation
The Transmission System Operator Security Cooperation (TSC) was launched in December 2008 as an initiative of equal partners with a decentralized approach to foster regional European cooperation for system security in the countries concerned and in the whole of Europe. Its members next to MAVIR (Hungary) are 50Hertz, Amprion (both Germany), APG (Austria), ČEPS (Czech Republic), ELES (Slovenia), Energinet. dk (Denmark), HOPS (Croatia), PSE (Poland), swissgrid (Switzerland), TenneT TSO (Germany), TenneT TSO (The Netherlands) and TransnetBW (Germany).
The involved TSOs set up a permanent TSO Security Panel (group of security experts), new cooperation tools for control centres and a common IT platform CTDS for data exchange and performing common n-1 security assessments. TSC TSOs’ main goal is to further enhance operational cooperation amongst TSOs in order to ensure keeping a high level of overall system security in the European electricity grid. TSC TSOs are open to the participation of further TSOs.

For further information

Olivier Feix
Head of Communications
50Hertz
T +49 30 51503813
olivier.feix@50hertz.com

Andreas Preuß
Commissarial Head of Communication
Amprion
T +49 231 584913785
andreas.preuss@amprion.net

Fritz Wöber
Head of Communications
Austrian Power Grid (APG)
T +43 (0)50 320-56230
fritz.woeber@apg.at

Tereza Soukupová
CEPS
T +420 721 315948
soukupovat@ceps.cz

Katja Krasko Štebljaj
Head of Corporate Communications
ELES, d.o.o.
T +386 1 4743989
katja.krasko@eles.si

Jesper Nørskov Rasmussen
Press Officer
Energinet. dk
T +45 76 224820
jnr@energinet.dk

Andrea Mihaldinec
Croatian Transmission System Operator Ltd. (HOPS)
T +385 1 4545461
andrea.mihaldinec@hops.hr

Mónika Hackl
Head of Corporate Communication
MAVIR
T +36 1 304 1790
media@mavir.hu

Beata Jarosz
PSE S.A.
T +48 222421927
beata.jarosz@pse.pl

Andreas Schwander
Press Spokesman
Swissgrid
T +41 58 5802400
andreas.schwander@swissgrid.ch

Ulrike Hörchens
Press Officer
TenneT TSO – Germany
T +49 921 9154045
ulrike.hoerchens@tennet.eu

TenneT Communication
TenneT TSO – The Netherlands
T +31 26 3732600
communication@tennet.eu

Regina König
Communication Officer
TransnetBW GmbH
T +49 711 21858-3155
r.koenig@transnetbw.de