What is a zone

Defining zones

Electricity Maps traces back the origin of the consumed electricity for more than 200 zones across the world. We are defining a zone as the physical grid on which consumers and producers are connected and which is controlled by a grid operator. Some grid operators are defining sub divisions for their grids like bidding zones. When those are available with the right data on this level, we aim at displaying the smallest subdivision available.

A zone might not always map to a political entity (country, state or region). The most prominent example of this is the US where the BA zones do not match with state lines.

At Electricity Maps, a zone is defined as a grid where electricity is consumed, and balanced by a grid operator.

Grid operators

The grid operator is the entity responsible for balancing electricity production and consumption on its grid, as well as imports or exports of electricity from/to neighboring grids. They take different names in different regions of the world with different responsibilities:

• Balancing authorities (BA) in Northern America Balancing authorities, a functional role defined by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), are mainly responsible for balancing electricity supply, demand, and interchange on their electric systems in real time.
• Transmission System Operator (TSO) in Europe and Japan European Transmission System Operators (TSOs) are entities operating independently from the other electricity market players and are responsible for the bulk transmission of electric power on the main high voltage electric networks. TSOs provide grid access to the electricity market players (i.e. generating companies, traders, suppliers, distributors and directly connected customers) according to non-discriminatory and transparent rules.
• Regional and National Load Despatch Centres in India are responsible for balancing the grid between consumers and producers in their respective regions as well as handling exchanges with other grids.
• Energy Market Operator in Australia
• …

Generation Only Zones

Some grid operators are only producing electricity which is then entirely supplied to another grid due to purchase agreements. In their zone, there are no consumers of electricity.

To simplify zone definitions, we merged those zones together with neighbouring zones in which the electricity is actually consumed. We do this when we are able to know where the electricity goes.

US: Generation only balancing authorities are listed by the EIA in the section Generation-only BAs https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/about

We are currently doing the following transfers:

• BA Salt River Project (US-SW-SRP) is integrating all of the produced electricity from Arlington Valley, LLC – AVBA (US-SW-DEAA) and New Harquahala Generating Company, LLC – HGBA (US-SW-HGMA)
• BA Northwestern Energy (Nwmt)(US-NW-NWMT) is integrating all of the produced electricity from NaturEner Power Watch, LLC (US-NW-GWA) and NaturEner Wind Watch, LLC (US-NW-WWA)
• US-SW-WALC is integrating all of the produced electricity from Griffith Energy, LLC (US-SW-GRIF)
• US-NW-PACW is integrating all gas related electricity production from Avangrid Renewables, LLC (US-NW-AVRN)
• US-NW-BPAT is integrating all wind related electricity production from Avangrid Renewables, LLC (US-NW-AVRN) South Carolina Public Service Authority (US-CAR-SC) is integrating a third of the nuclear related electricity production from US-CAR-SCEG