E VDE-AR-N 4140 Anwendungsregel:2024-04

Sections 13 and 14 of the EnWG (Energy Industry Act) require TSOs and DSOs, as part of their system responsibility, to eliminate hazards or disruptions to the security or reliability of the electricity supply system. The network operators are authorised and obliged to adapt all electricity generation, electricity transits and electricity purchases to the requirements of safe and reliable operation of the system or to demand this adaptation.
If the measures taken by a network operator are not sufficient to eliminate critical grid and system situations, it can request further measures from downstream grid operators. For their part, the downstream network operators are obliged to implement the requested measures and support them with their own measures.
The safe and reliable functioning of co-operation between network operators is a fundamental prerequisite for maintaining the safe and reliable operation of the electrical energy system.
This VDE application rule defines the interaction of network operators within the cascade for manual final measures to maintain or restore system security and describes basic procedural processes and communication requirements.
As manually triggered final measures must be implemented quickly across several cascade levels and a large number of participating network operators, this VDE application rule creates the basis for the automated processing of messages.