Skånes Effektkommission Flexibilitetsbehov Metod (2026)

Title: Metod och vägledning för bedömning av flexibilitetsbehov Published by: Skånes Effektkommission (working group), published via Region Skåne / Utveckling Skåne Authors/project owners: E.ON Energidistribution, Kraftringen Nät, Öresundskraft Elnät Type: Methodology guidance document (~15 pages)

Purpose and scope

A practical guide for DSOs to assess and report their flexibility needs, usable for both NUP (nätutvecklingsplaner / DNDP) and FNA (Flexibility Needs Assessment methodology). Produced by a working group of the Effektkommission with representatives of three Skåne-based DSOs.

The guide is calibrated to minimum reporting requirements but also gives examples of how an extended assessment can be done. It is adapted to radial grid networks.

Legal context: Since 2024, all DSOs holding a local or regional grid must produce NUPs every second year, describing grid development over the coming ten years and the medium- and long-term need for flexibility services. From 2026, all DSOs must also regularly assess and report flexibility needs per the common European FNA methodology. Because the FNA assessment must be consistent with the NUPs, the guide stresses integrating this work into long-term grid planning.

Definition

Flexibility need (flexibilitetsbehov) is defined as: the need to change or limit customers’ injection or withdrawal of electricity in order to keep the grid loaded within given capacity limits.

For FNA reporting, the flexibility need is expressed as: maximum flexible power [MW] that must be available to ensure all grid components remain within the operational transfer limits, given:

• Forecast customer demand at the target year (most likely scenario)
• Planned grid expansion at the target year (today’s grid plus investments expected to be in operation by then)

Must be reported per season, direction (behovsriktning) and reason (skäl). The need is a technical one: the assessment must not take available or procured flexibility into account.

Two sources of need:

• Technical limitations in grid components (transformers, lines) exceeding operational limits, which the grid owner defines. Flexibility needed only when N-1 is activated must be included.
• Subscription limitations towards the overlying grid. Under the FNA principle, the grid owner experiencing the limitation reports the need, so the underlying grid reports it even where the constraint lies in the overlying grid.

Four-step method

Step 1 — Define baseline (nulägesdefinition)

Purpose: establish a robust reference point on which forecasts and planned grid investments can be built.

Three sub-steps:

1. Define boundaries — list the network points/components to analyse: all points at selected network levels (e.g. all border points and distribution stations), or only points where capacity constraints are judged likely.
2. Data collection — the time interval is usually 3–5 years, taking network structure and operating modes into account (e.g. relocated load, new customers). Collect historical hourly load data for all selected points; where metering is absent, customer meter data can be aggregated; where no representative time series exists, historical peak loads can be used. Check completeness, fill gaps, and review outliers.
3. Establish the baseline — two options: (A) dimensioning hourly power for peak-load and low-load hour (peak = highest net withdrawal; low load = highest net injection or lowest net withdrawal), checked against variation over day/week/year and temperature; peak load can be temperature-adjusted, e.g. by averaging the 5 highest peaks; or (B) a full one-year time series, defining one or more typical years (e.g. warm/medium/cold) from recent hourly profiles.

Step 2 — Define forecast (prognosdefinition)

Purpose: estimate future load at the target years (2030 and 2035) under the most likely scenario.

Three sub-steps:

1. Identify additional installations — ongoing and planned connections, societal growth (municipal plans, customer dialogue) and trends such as small-scale solar and vehicle charging, compiled per category (dwellings, businesses, home charging, etc.) for 2030 and 2035.
2. Identify additional power — two options: (A) aggregated (sammanlagrade) power templates per load category, e.g. Table 1 of the guide (from Energiforsk, Effektprognos — en lathund för lokalnätsbolag, 2024); or (B) profile-based aggregation, using typical profiles per category (peak/low-load days or a full year), summed into a total hourly profile — suited to detailed daily-variation analysis and scenario analysis (temperature, solar irradiation, usage patterns).
3. Integrate with baseline — add the additional peak/minimum load to the baseline’s dimensioning hourly values, or add typical/scaled annual profiles to the baseline time series. The result is an estimate of expected max and min load and, where needed, a forecast time series for the target year.

Table 1 — aggregated power templates (peak load), Energiforsk lathund:

The table’s industry row is marked “Ej användbart” (not usable); the non-residential values were checked against the rendered PDF page (p. 10). Values refer to peak load. For low load, the values can be multiplied by the ratio of lowest to highest hourly power in the grid over the year (e.g. lowest 20 and highest 100 gives 0.2).

Worked examples (simplified, additional power to 2030, for 1,000 connection points):

• Home charging of passenger cars: cars = connection points; chargeable share 15% (2025), 40% (2030), 70% (2040); aggregated demand 0.2 kW/vehicle by day and 1 kW at night. Increase 40 − 15 = 25% of 1,000 = 250 vehicles, giving +50 kW by day and +250 kW at night.
• Small-scale solar: share of connection points with PV 13% (2025), 25% (2030), 35% (2040); average 18 kW per installation; aggregated 0.9 × 18 ≈ 16 kW on a summer low-load day and 0 kW on a winter peak-load day. Increase 25 − 13 = 12% of 1,000 = 120 installations, giving about 1,900 kW of injection on a summer day and 0 kW in winter.

Step 3 — Define capacity constraints (kapacitetsbegränsning)

Purpose: establish the constraints against which the forecast will be compared — technical or contractual limits that risk overload within the planning period. Two sub-steps:

1. Identify limits — define a capacity limit for every point/object included. Subscription limits towards the overlying grid (injection and withdrawal limits) for the target years are obtained from the overlying grid owner. Technical transfer limits are set by the grid owner (e.g. an N-1 requirement or 100% of transformer rating); state assumptions such as N-1, temperature/cooling and operating limits.
2. Include planned reinvestments/reinforcements for the target years or period where they affect the capacity limits.

Exclusions allowed: voltage constraints and constraints arising from physical space may be excluded, as may constraints in the low-voltage network.

Double-counting rule: to avoid double-counting, the lokalnät must clearly report which need arises from constraints in its own network versus constraints in the overlying network.

Step 4 — Summarise and identify flexibility need

Purpose: compare forecast against capacity limits, then quantify and locate the flexibility need.

First the forecast load (hourly value or time series) is compared with each object’s capacity limits (technical limits, subscription limits, etc.). Then:

4.1 Quantification — two options:

• A. Event-based: identify the times/load situations where limits are exceeded and report per event the overload [MW], the time/period (date/hour; winter/summer), whether it is up-regulation (reduced consumption or increased production) or down-regulation (increased consumption or reduced production), and the reason (e.g. customer connections, weather-dependent need, overlying-grid limitation).
• B. Time-based: analyse the whole time series and compute the maximum power exceedance [MW] and the accumulated energy need for flexibility [MWh] over the period, document the winter/summer split, and record whether the need is up- or down-regulation.

4.2 Localisation — determine where in the grid and at which voltage levels the need arises, reporting needs caused by own-grid limitations separately from those caused by overlying-grid limitations to avoid double reporting.

Key methodological choices

• Target years: 2030 and 2035
• Reporting dimensions: season, direction (up/down) and reason
• Radial grid adaptation: the method is adapted to radial grids; it is calibrated to minimum reporting requirements, with examples of how a more extended assessment can be done
• Technical need only: available or procured flexibility is not considered

Relevance to wiki

• Updates DSO Flexibility Need Calculation Methods › How DSOs calculate flexibility needs in practice with the Skåne four-step method and the Energiforsk lathund power templates
• Provides the Energiforsk lathund power-template table (Table 1) for the first time in the wiki
• Confirms the reporting dimensions (MW by season, direction and reason) for FNA; the guide is intended for both NUP and FNA
• The double-counting rule (own-grid vs superior-grid) is an important practical clarification not previously documented
• Produced by a Skåne Effektkommission working group — links to Skånes Effektkommission entity page