Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania.
Status: operational since 2025-02-04.
Wholesale design: Common daily day-ahead procurement of FCR, aFRR and mFRR balancing capacity, with cross-zonal allocation for reserve exchange and sharing. This is an ancillary-service capacity market, not a generation-adequacy capacity market.
Market type
Regional market overlay
Operators
Elering · Augstsprieguma tīkls · Litgrid
Dispatch model
Daily optimization of balancing-capacity bids across the three Baltic bidding zones, coordinated with available cross-zonal capacity.
Pricing granularity
product, direction, bidding zone and procurement period
Nominal frequency
50 Hz
Where energy trades
Where does energy trade in Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM)?
Energy in Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) trades in 3 layers: balancing capacity, balancing energy and cross-zonal reserve exchange.
What a battery can sell
What ancillary services can a battery sell in Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM)?
Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) has 5 ancillary-service products, across 3 families — frequency containment, automatic frequency restoration and manual frequency restoration: Baltic automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — downward, Baltic automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — upward, Baltic Frequency Containment Reserve capacity, Baltic manual Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — downward, Baltic manual Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — upward. Response timing, direction and eligibility for each are in the cards below, as the official sources state them.
Facts below are stated as the official sources state them. A missing line means the
source does not state that value — never that the value is zero.
Frequency containment
Baltic Frequency Containment Reserve capacity FCR
operational in the common Baltic daily balancing-capacity market
Contain frequency deviations in the Continental Europe synchronous area and Baltic LFC block.
Direction
symmetric
Full activation
30 s
Trigger / range
continuous response to frequency deviation under Continental Europe FCR rules
Typical procurement
29 MW (2025-02-05)
Pricing
common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Automatic frequency restoration
Baltic automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — downward aFRR down
introduced after Baltic PICASSO connection in 2025; absent from the first delivery day
Automatically restore Baltic LFC-block balance and release FCR in the downward direction.
Direction
downward
Full activation
5 min
Trigger / range
LFC-block control need; not a single public frequency threshold
Typical procurement
90–120 MW (2025)
Pricing
common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Baltic automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — upward aFRR up
introduced after Baltic PICASSO connection in 2025; absent from the first delivery day
Automatically restore Baltic LFC-block balance and release FCR in the upward direction.
Direction
upward
Full activation
5 min
Trigger / range
LFC-block control need; not a single public frequency threshold
Typical procurement
90–120 MW (2025)
Pricing
common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Manual frequency restoration
Baltic manual Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — downward mFRR down
operational in the common Baltic daily balancing-capacity market
Restore Baltic LFC-block balance and release faster reserves in the downward direction.
Direction
downward
Full activation
750 s
Sustain
at least 5 min
Trigger / range
TSO activation based on LFC-block imbalance and reserve need
Typical procurement
498 MW (2025-02-05)
Pricing
common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Baltic manual Frequency Restoration Reserve capacity — upward mFRR up
operational in the common Baltic daily balancing-capacity market
Restore Baltic LFC-block balance and release faster reserves in the upward direction.
Direction
upward
Full activation
750 s
Sustain
at least 5 min
Trigger / range
TSO activation based on LFC-block imbalance and reserve need
Typical procurement
730 MW (2025-02-05)
Pricing
common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Getting paid to exist
Does Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) have a capacity mechanism?
No central capacity market. Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) has 1 capacity/adequacy arrangement — Baltic balancing-capacity procurement — and it works differently. Responsibility sits with Elering, Augstsprieguma tīkls and Litgrid.
Baltic balancing-capacity procurement
operational since 2025-02-04
Daily common procurement of FCR, aFRR and mFRR availability for system balancing; it is not a generation-adequacy capacity market.
daily day-ahead common Baltic balancing-capacity auction
Responsibility
Elering, Augstsprieguma tīkls and Litgrid
Unit of obligation
MW of prequalified balancing capacity by product, direction and bidding period
Auction held in 2025
No
()
— Daily balancing-capacity auctions began in 2025, but they are ancillary-service procurement and do not count as capacity-adequacy auctions.
Revenue routes
Merchant revenue routes
balancing capacity
balancing energy
Caveats
Technical notes
Non-additive regional overlay. The same common products also appear in the three national market profiles. Fifteen minutes is the bidding and market time unit; it is not the settlement interval.
Current as of · from the
Global Electricity Market Catalogue v1.2.0 (compiled to , CC BY 4.0). Facts belong to the linked official authorities;
verify the current rules before design or bidding decisions.
Questions
Common questions about Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM)
Who operates Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM)?
Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) covers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and is operated by Elering, Augstsprieguma tīkls and Litgrid.
Was a qualifying capacity event held in Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM) in 2025?
No. Baltic balancing-capacity procurement: no qualifying 2025 event is recorded. Daily balancing-capacity auctions began in 2025, but they are ancillary-service procurement and do not count as capacity-adequacy auctions.
How is energy traded, priced and settled in Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM)?
Baltic Balancing Capacity Market (BBCM): Common daily day-ahead procurement of FCR, aFRR and mFRR balancing capacity, with cross-zonal allocation for reserve exchange and sharing. This is an ancillary-service capacity market, not a generation-adequacy capacity market. dispatch — Daily optimization of balancing-capacity bids across the three Baltic bidding zones, coordinated with available cross-zonal capacity; pricing granularity — product, direction, bidding zone and procurement period.