Balance responsibility
Article 5
1. All market participants shall be responsible for the imbalances they cause in the system (‘balance responsibility’). To that end, market participants shall either be balance responsible parties or shall contractually delegate their responsibility to a balance responsible party of their choice. Each balance responsible party shall be financially responsible for its imbalances and shall strive to be balanced or shall help the electricity system to be balanced. 2. Member States may provide derogations from balance responsibility only for: (a) demonstration projects for innovative technologies, subject to approval by the regulatory authority, provided that those derogations are limited to the time and extent necessary for achieving the demonstration purposes; (b) power-generating facilities using renewable energy sources with an installed electricity capacity of less than 400 kW; (c) installations benefitting from support approved by the Commission under Union State aid rules pursuant to Articles 107, 108 and 109 TFEU, and commissioned before 4 July 2019. Member States may, without prejudice to Articles 107 and 108 TFEU, provide incentives to market participants which are fully or partly exempted from balancing responsibility to accept full balancing responsibility. 3. When a Member State provides a derogation in accordance with paragraph 2, it shall ensure that the financial responsibility for imbalances is fulfilled by another market participant. 4. For power-generating facilities commissioned from 1 January 2026, point (b) of paragraph 2 shall apply only to generating installations using renewable energy sources with an installed electricity capacity of less than 200 kW.