Since the end of 2022, Coreso and the other RCCs play an active and official role in the investigation of European network incidents, in partnership with the TSOs.
Different scales (threshold from 0 to 3) are used to assess the level of severity of a grid incident*: from a noteworthy local incident (level 0) up to a general, extensive, major and Europe-wide incident (level 3). According to the EU Incident Classification Scale (ICS) methodology, each TSO shall rank the events affecting system operations to their rightful level of importance, based on their impact on system security.
When an incident reaches a threshold of 2 or 3, an investigation is conducted by the ENTSO-E ICS Expert Panel. Two reports on the incident need to be produced and published on the ENTSO-E public website: a factual report outlining the sequence of events, and a final report identifying the root causes and including improvement recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future.
The RCC Post-Operation and Post Disturbances Analysis and Reporting task requires Coreso and the other RCCs to actively interact and support the ENTSO-E ICS investigation process.
In case of an incident of scale 2 or 3, an RCC Investigation Subgroup is created within the ICS Expert Panel to support the drafting of the final report. The RCC Subgroup must also provide all information about the RCC activities linked to the incident. After the publication of the ICS final report, RCCs must monitor the implementation of RCC recommendations.
In addition to the RCC regulated task of Post-Operation and Post-Disturbance Analysis and Reporting, Coreso carries out a Post-Event Analysis (PEA) process. Our goal is to foster operational excellence and ensure continuous improvement of the existing services we provide to our stakeholders. The process consists of performing studies after an unexpected event: we analyse incidents in the European transmission network, but also our operational tasks and processes. Based on the study’s results, solution proposals are sought, and the findings are shared with the relevant audience. Finally, we monitor the implementation of solution proposals, in collaboration with both internal and external stakeholders.
Read more information about this Post-operation and post-disturbances analysis task in our annual report or consult the regulation.
*An incident is an event influencing the cross-border transfer capacity and trade (e.g. significant generation outage, outage of transmission equipment, or split of the system) that may lead to social consequences (e.g. disconnection of load or partial to total black-out), degradation of the system reliability (e.g. violation of the system parameters) or degradation of system adequacy (e.g. shortage of reserves).