Issue 05 · 2 October 2026

This week’s takeaways

• Grid charges are rising for 2027. Grid operators in Finland, Sweden, and Estonia set higher transmission charges to pay for grid building, while Ireland is refunding generators who paid above a European cap.
• Flexibility is gaining routes to market. Sweden plans to join the European automatic reserve platform in late 2027, Estonia is consulting on a capacity mechanism open to storage, and Great Britain is moving selected constraint actions into one service from 7 October.
• The way networks get built is changing. Great Britain is creating a publicly owned grid investor and widening self-build connections, which is this week’s deep dive.

How to read this

↑ Tailwind   ↓ Headwind   • Neutral

Tailwind helps the businesses affected. Headwind adds cost, delay or risk. Neutral means no clear overall benefit or drawback, though the change may still matter.

Potential means the effect depends on a proposal being adopted or another condition being met. Consultations are proposals open for feedback. They are listed with their closing dates in the diary at the end.

Our six themes
Market Design · Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes · Siting, Permitting and Land Use · Grid · Environmental Markets · Supply Chains

The regulatory picture

Updates in this edition, by market and likely effect. Bar length shows how many updates we cover, not how big their impact is. Consultations in the diary are included, and cross-border measures appear in each affected market. Select a market to jump to its section.

↑ Tailwind • Neutral ↓ Headwind

This week’s deep dive

🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Grid

Great Britain creates a publicly owned grid investor

On 29 September the government announced Great British Grid, a publicly owned body inside Great British Energy, which will invest public money, alongside private capital, in electricity network infrastructure. Ministers also promised two reforms: wider rights for developers to build their own connections and faster competitive tendering of transmission projects, which Great British Grid could bid for.

The slow buildout of transmission infrastructure has been one of the main roadblocks to bringing more renewable assets online in the United Kingdom. The government says its reforms are removing more than 300 GW of speculative capacity from the queue.

The rest of the queue is still being offered connections under the Gate 2 reform. Last week the National Energy System Operator (NESO) asked the regulator to move its deadline for the first phase of offers from 30 September to 31 October 2026. It has issued about 75% of the offers needed for 2030, but up to 37 offers that depend on National Grid’s transmission work need two to four more weeks, and about 25 others are delayed, mostly at customers’ request.

A project that builds its own connection assets can set its own timetable, at the price of carrying the construction cost and risk. Faster tendering could also bring forward the reinforcements that decide where new solar, wind, and battery sites can connect.

Two smaller changes point the same way. From 21 October, network companies in England can install larger substations, up to 45 cubic metres, without a planning application, and the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) is consulting on minimum standards for connection customers until 6 November. The self-build rules, the budget, and Great British Grid's legal form are all still to come.

What to watch: The details of self-build connections, including which projects qualify and who owns the assets afterwards, and Ofgem's answer to NESO's request for more time.

Commission pursues 18 countries over energy sharing

25 September ·  Market Design  Decision · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The European Commission opened infringement procedures against 18 countries, including France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, for not transposing European Union (EU) rules on energy sharing and supplier choice, which were due on 17 July 2026. Energy sharing lets owners of rooftop solar, community wind, and storage sell or share their output with neighbours. Each country has two months to reply.

Croatia adopts new electricity market rules

25 September ·  Market Design / Grid / Siting, Permitting and Land Use  Law · ↑ Tailwind

The Parliament adopted amendments to the Electricity Market Act that let customers share renewable energy and settle stalled approvals and connections for new projects. When it sent the bill to Parliament in August, the government said the law also encourages long-term supply contracts. The adopted text is not yet published, so how sharing will work in practice is still to come.

Czech regulator sets 2027 support and trims wind bonus

30 September ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Decision · • Neutral

The Energy Regulatory Office set the 2027 support levels for existing solar, wind, and small hydro plants. Purchase prices rise by the statutory 2%, but the imbalance price used in wind's quarter-hour bonus falls from 250 to 150 koruna per MWh (roughly €10 to €6), which lowers what wind plants can claim.

Estonia approves higher 2027 network charges

29 September ·  Grid  Decision · • Neutral

The Competition Authority approved the 2027 charges of Elering, Estonia's grid operator. The network charge rises by 0.1 cent per kWh because Elering must collect €111 million, about €7.7 million more than in 2026, while the balancing-capacity charge falls by 0.08 cent per kWh, so Elering expects no rise in the final bill. Network charges will cover about 52% of grid investment in 2026 to 2030, up from 21% in 2022 to 2025.

Fingrid requires grid-forming capability from new wind and solar

25 September ·  Grid  Decision · ↓ Headwind

Fingrid, Finland's grid operator, will require new wind and solar plants in areas already dominated by inverter-based generation to provide grid-forming control. Plants can meet it with their own inverters or with batteries or synchronous compensators. Projects with a connection agreement are exempt, so the rule adds cost for projects still without one.

Fingrid raises transmission charges

28 September ·  Grid  Decision · ↓ Headwind

Fingrid will raise its transmission charges by 4% from 1 January 2027 to pay for grid building ahead of demand. Its investments have already connected more than 13,000 MW of clean generation, and connection agreements cover more than 8,000 MW of new consumption. Storage, electrolysers, and large loads that draw from the grid should add the rise to their 2027 costs.

France confirms €1.67 billion for its capacity mechanism

23 September ·  Market Design  Decision · ↑ Tailwind

The Energy Regulatory Commission fixed the financing of France's new capacity mechanism for its first delivery period, 1 November 2026 to 31 March 2027, at €1.67 billion, collected from electricity suppliers at €18,646.6 per MW. The money pays for the generation, storage, and demand-response capacity chosen in the grid operator's first auction on 6 July, so storage selected there will be paid from this winter.

Irish generators get €11.7 million back in transmission charges

28 September ·  Grid  Announcement · ↑ Tailwind

EirGrid, Ireland's grid operator, will refund €11.7 million to generators whose 2024/25 transmission charges averaged €2.9 per MWh, above the €2.5 per MWh cap set by EU rules. Each unit gets a credit of about 13% of that year's transmission bill against its 2026/27 charges. Units not energised in 2024/25 get nothing, and the charges also passed the cap in the two years before.

Ireland sets the scope for shared export capacity at hybrids

28 September ·  Grid / Market Design  Guidance · • Neutral

EirGrid and Ireland's distribution operator answered 54 industry questions on sharing one export limit between technologies at a single site. Sharing is open only to onshore hybrids under one legal entity, with each unit metered and dispatched separately. An existing wind or solar farm with priority dispatch that adds storage and shares its limit loses priority dispatch.

Italy lowers the price cap for its next storage auction

25 September ·  Market Design / Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Decision · ↓ Headwind

The Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and Environment set the maximum premium for Italy's second forward auction of battery storage capacity, on 24 November 2026, at €27,000 per MWh per year, down from €37,000 in the first round. The cap assumes lower battery costs than last time, though higher than the regulator first proposed. A lower ceiling narrows the contracted revenue a winning battery can earn.

Italy lets old solar plants leave Conto Energia

28 September ·  Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Decree · ↑ Tailwind

The Ministry of Environment and Energy Security published a decree letting solar plants above 20 kW leave the Conto Energia feed-in scheme early if they are fully repowered between 2028 and 2030. A competitive round will run by 30 June 2027.

Norway fines a generator for inflated balancing bids

29 September ·  Market Design  Decision · • Neutral

The Norwegian Energy Regulatory Authority fined hydropower producer SFE AS NOK 3 million (about €260,000) for about 350 balancing-market bids between January 2023 and January 2024 priced above their real cost. None was activated, but in a market where everyone is paid the clearing price, such bids can distort it. SFE can appeal within three weeks. Battery and hydro owners now have a precedent: a bid price must rest on documented costs.

Sweden plans to join the EU automatic reserve platform in late 2027

25 September ·  Market Design  Announcement · ↑ Tailwind

Svenska kraftnät, Sweden's grid operator, plans to join the Platform for the International Coordination of Automated Frequency Restoration and Stable System Operation (PICASSO), Europe’s platform for cross-border automatic frequency restoration reserves, in the fourth quarter of 2027. It is also working on a central proxy solution so more participants can take part.

Svenska kraftnät raises 2027 grid fees and changes their structure

28 September ·  Grid / Market Design  Decision · ↓ Headwind

Svenska kraftnät set its 2027 transmission fees, with a new four-part model that includes a power fee, set at zero for 2027. The discount funded by congestion income since 2021 shrinks by about SEK 350 million (about €32 million), which raises the fixed fee by about 20% on average for its grid customers. The effect varies by location and by whether a customer injects or withdraws.

Demand Flexibility Service takes over Scottish constraint actions

29 September ·  Market Design  Announcement · ↑ Tailwind

NESO will buy selected Scottish constraint actions through its Demand Flexibility Service from 7 October, moving them out of the Local Constraints Market. Providers register once and can be paid for local constraint actions as well as national events, a simpler route to revenue for batteries and flexible demand. Further areas will follow in phases.

Ministers announce Great British Grid and self-build connections

29 September ·  Grid / Taxes, Subsidies and Public Programmes  Announcement · ↑ Potential Tailwind

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero announced Great British Grid, a publicly owned network investor, with reforms to let developers build their own connections. Read this week’s deep dive.

Closing by 9 October