Life Elia

We were invited by the Working Group Asset and Implementation Management of ENTSO-E, the body of TSOs at European level (see news), to present the LIFE Elia-RTE project on November 18^th 2014. And another invitation was made by the working group Network of Communication Experts (NCE) to present the project on the 3^rd of December 2014. Indeed, as the project goes on and being in contact with 15 different TSOs in Europe, the team is willing to contribute to some challenges that TSO are facing in each Member State. The AIM working group is composed by experts of maintenance from different European TSOs, whereas the NCE working group gather experts of communication within TSO.

Presentation and perspectives

The group was interested by the presentation and will support the LIFE Elia-RTE in the development of a partnership between ENTSO-E and the project.

The LIFE Elia presented the similarities arising from meetings with 15 TSOs :

• Grid management/development/renovation is not an easy game...
• Relations with authorities are crucial
• Environment departments often feel lonely...
• TSO wish : not to be considered as a enemy for nature

Two questions are of upmost importance when thinking about biodiversity :

• you cannot avoid biodiversity...but how to deal with it ?
• biodiversity seems not valuable, but is that really so ?

ENTSO-E is therefore somehow at a crossing point from which we could assess that :

• there is room for a vegetation management working group integrating biodiversity !
• there is a need of TSO for internal expertise on nature conservation
• we could present TSO as partner of biodiversity to the EU
• it would be very interesting to build with the DG Energy and DG Environment the best answers to 2 huge challenges : energy and biodiversity

Relying on 3,5 years of experience, the LIFE Elia-RTE team proposes some targets to lead along with ENTSO-E :

• establish a state-of-the art in biodiversity management in Europe
• contribute to a memorandum for the EU Commission on TSO's main constraints - obligations (green energy->grid) - wishes
• build up a toolkit on how to shift from classical vegetation management to alternatives
• accompany TSO on transition processes

We believe that TSO can be partner of biodiversity and we are looking forward to develop further these ideas with ENTSO-E.