9. A rapidly evolving field

The management of large generation-transmission systems is undergoing major change, mainly due to the influence of electricity market participants, who wish to make decisions with ever shorter notice, and who expect TSOs to conceal the technical constraints of the transmission network as far as possible.

Numerous organizational schemes are being tested around the world, enabling us to accumulate experience on the most appropriate solutions. TSO coordination methods, like the rules governing access to transmission networks, are evolving to remain compatible with the development of increasingly fierce competition between players in the electricity industry. These changes mean that generation-transmission systems are becoming more complex to manage, requiring ever more information to be processed with ever less notice. All the resources of communication and information...