As of June 1, 2026, the test environments of the EDC IS and OTE IS systems enable integrated testing of processes related to ervicesty storage and the provision of technical flexibility and balancing ervices (ancillary ervices), including integration with the network traffic light systém in EDC. The objective is to allow market participants to test the new processes in the affected systems necessary for the provision of technical flexibility/balancing ervices and ervicesty storage from August 1, 2026, and September 1, 2026, respectively.
OTE and EDC strongly recommend that market participants who are already providers of balancing energy/balancing ervices and who intend to continue providing technical flexibility/balancing ervices to ČEPS, a.s., in the role of aggregator or flexibility provider from September 1, 2026, familiarize themselves with all upcoming changes effective from August 1, 2026, and September 1, 2026. In particular, they should ensure the necessary registration or re-registration as an aggregator/flexibility provider in the systems of ČEPS, EDC, and OTE, and become acquainted with the change processes associated with the provision of technical flexibility/balancing ervices across all affected systems of ČEPS, EDC, and OTE, including the necessary testing of these processes.

For more details regarding the planned changes in electricity storage or the provision of technical flexibility and balancing services, we recommend reviewing the proposed amendments to Decree No. 408/2015 Coll. on Electricity Market Rules, available at:
https://eru.gov.cz/navrh-novely-vyhlasky-o-pravidlech-trhu-s-elektrinou-3

In this context, please note that, based on the planned amendment to Decree No. 408/2015 Coll. on Electricity Market Rules, the production environment of CS OTE will allow registration of aggregators/flexibility providers and assignment of aggregators/flexibility providers/balance responsible parties to individual delivery points for the provision of technical flexibility effective from September 1, 2026, beginning on August 1, 2026.
Given the deadlines stipulated in the upcoming decree, it is expected that the entire process of assigning an aggregator/flexibility provider and balance responsible party to delivery points within the CS OTE system will take at least 14 days. The market operator therefore strongly recommends that all current and future providers of technical flexibility/balancing services, i.e., aggregators/flexibility providers, test the process of assigning aggregators/flexibility providers and balance responsible parties to the relevant delivery points in the Sandbox test environment in order to be fully prepared to complete the process smoothly in the production environment of CS OTE at the beginning of August, where the timeframe for fulfilling all necessary requirements will be limited.

If the aggregator/flexibility provider and the balance responsible party are not assigned during August 2026, with effect from September 1, 2026, to the relevant delivery points in the production environment of CS OTE, and if all registration requirements in the systems of ČEPS and EDC are not fulfilled, they will not be permitted to provide technical flexibility services or balancing services to the transmission system operator from September 1, 2026.

The testing requirements for the OTE and EDC systems are available here.