Manually Activated Reserves Initiative

Manually Activated Reserves Initiative (MARI) is the European implementation project for the creation, future development, and operation of the European mFRR platform.

Project Introduction

The Electricity Balancing guideline (hereinafter the ‘EB Regulation‘), approved by the Electricity Cross-Border Committee on 16 March 2017, defines tasks and a timeline for the implementation of a European platform for the exchange of balancing energy from frequency restoration reserves with manual activation (mFRR).

Given the importance of an efficient balancing mechanism for an integrated electricity market, back in 2017, 19 European TSOs initially decided to work on the design of an mFRR platform in order to address pending issues and questions connected with the establishment of such a platform as soon as possible. These TSOs decided to set a project, officially named MARI (Manually Activated Reserves Initiative), and worked on the technical solution, which does not only reflect the views of the founding parties but could also be acceptable for potential new parties joining the initiative. The project was designated as the European implementation project for the mFRR platform by all TSOs. Since then, several TSOs joined MARI.

On 24 July 2019, all regulatory authorities referred the TSOs’ mFRR IF proposal to ACER. On 24 January 2020, ACER adopted a Decision and set the deadline for the implementation of the mFRR platform, which shall fulfil all requirements defined in the mFRR IF by 30 months following the decision. On 5 October 2022 the platform has been brought successfully into operation with accession of the four German TSOs and ČEPS. On 20 June 2023 APG accessed. Further TSOs are expected to access the platform in the course of 2024.

Members

The parties involved are:

• Member TSOs: 50Hertz Transmission, ADMIE, Amprion, APG, AST, ČEPS, Creos, Elering, ELES, ELIA, Energinet, ESO, Fingrid, HOPS, Litgrid, MAVIR, PSE, REE, REN, RTE, SEPS, Statnett, Svenska Kraftnät, Swissgrid, TenneT DE, TenneT NL, Terna, Transelectrica, and TransnetBW.
• Observers: EirGrid, MEPSO, SONI, ENTSO-E.

Stakeholder Workshops

• 8 December 2022 Balancing platforms stakeholder’s workshop
• 2 December 2021 PICASSO-MARI Stakeholder Workshop
• 18 December 2020 MARI workshop
• 13 July 2020 MARI and PICASSO implementation workshop
• 16 October 2018 Workshop on All TSO proposals on activation purposes and pricing
• 20-21 June 2018 Workshop on balancing
• 4 September 2017 YouTube
  Slides
  

Publications

• 28 June 2023 MARI - Bid Structure and Linking
• 28 April 2023 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• 2 November 2022 MARI Activation Optimization Function - Public Description
• 25 October 2022 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• June 2022 MARI – Bid Structure and Linking document
• 21 April 2022 MARI Algorithm Description
• 28 April 2022 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• 29 October 2021 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• 24 April 2021 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• 13 November 2020 Updated accession roadmap of MARI
• 24 April 2020 Accession roadmap of MARI
• 24 January 2020 mFRR Implementation Framework
• November 2018 N-SIDE Final Report
  N-SIDE Clarifying Questions
  

News and information notes

• 27 June 2023 APG successfully accessed to MARI platform
• 5 October 2022 Go-Live of MARI
• 18 December 2018 mFRR Implementation Framework
• 21 November 2017 The First Consultation (Call for Input) - 19 European TSOs Seek Stakeholders’ Feedback
• 5 April 2017 19 European TSOs agree to further cooperation on mFRR-platform

Consultations

• 15 May to 16 July 2018 mFRR Implementation Framework before submission 18 December 2018
• 21 November to 20 December 2017 mFRR Platform Design - First Consultation

Contacts

• PMO: Susanne Dornick
• PMO: Dilan Özyildirim