The inability to meet new transport capacity requests from grid users with the necessary grid investments and reinforcement can result in severe congestion and a long waiting list for new connections. To face the scarcity or unavailability of transport capacity on the medium voltage affecting their whole country, the Dutch grid operators have developed a national standard for communication between operators and customers that facilitates a more dynamic use of the existing grid capacity.
Thanks to this Realtime Interface (RTI), the grid operator can send maximum production setpoints to the customers and receive grid usage measurements from them. Together with the setpoints, the RTI also sends a justification, providing the user with the information and business context necessary to support the operation of their assets and their participation in the energy market. The installation of the RTI is now mandatory for customers requesting more than 1 MW of new transportation capacity for infeed or a contractual capacity increase for existing connections. Thanks to several tests conducted with different vendors and an independent test facility, both the grid operators and grid users can choose from a range of RTI-compliant products.
