Italy is developing a framework for distributed flexibility through complementary legal and regulatory instruments. Legislative Decree 210/2021 provides the legal foundation; ARERA Resolution 352/2021/R/eel establishes local ancillary-service pilots; and TIDE reforms national electricity dispatching. These developments create a growing need for grid visibility, locational flexibility assessment and coordination between distribution and transmission system operators.
TIDE has governed electricity dispatching in Italy since 1 January 2025, with a further consolidation phase from 1 February 2026: generation, consumption and storage resources can provide services individually or through aggregation, subject to qualification and market rules — while ARERA 352/2021 lets distribution operators procure local ancillary services through approved pilot projects.
Regulatory basis: ARERA 352/2021/R/eel →For DSOs subject to the relevant network development planning requirements, Article 23 of Legislative Decree 210/2021 establishes a concrete planning task: identify flexibility needs and expected congestion, and compare the costs of network investment with flexibility and other alternatives to expansion. This creates a direct use case for grid modelling, congestion forecasting and quantified flexibility-versus-reinforcement analysis.
That means observing MV and LV grids that were never fully measured, forecasting congestion at feeder and substation level, quantifying the flexibility requirement by location and time — and then verifying that what was procured actually relieved the constraint. The pilots under ARERA 352/2021, EDGE and RomeFlex, are exactly this loop, run in production.
The TIDE adds a second horizon: resources connected to your grid now participate in system-wide dispatching markets. Operating envelopes and hosting-capacity limits are how a DSO keeps those market actions grid-safe without blocking them.
Locational flexibility assessment sits behind every pilot and every dispatching reform: which feeder, which hour, how many kilowatts — and what reinforcement it replaces.
The three regulatory layers build on each other — and all three converge on the same operational capability at the distribution operator:
In the middle sits the DSO with grid visibility and flexibility orchestration; around it, the assets that now carry the flexibility:
EnliteAI FLEX supports the analytical decisions behind flexibility procurement: estimating grid conditions, forecasting congestion, quantifying flexibility needs by location and time, and comparing flexibility with reinforcement. Operational activation and delivery verification depend on the interfaces, data and workflows implemented with the DSO and its market and service-provider partners.
Compare the routes: Germany — § 14a EnWG → · Austria — the ElWG →
Legislative Decree 210/2021 (December 2021), ARERA 352/2021 (August 2021) and the TIDE (in force since 1 January 2025) are all current Italian law and regulation — and the local-flexibility pilots are running.
Regulation (EU) 2024/1747 and Directive (EU) 2024/1711 entered into force on 16 July 2024. Together, they strengthen the European framework for flexibility, flexible connection agreements and transparency on available grid capacity. The Directive requires national transposition according to its specified deadlines; entry into force does not mean that every provision became operational in every Member State on that date.
Local flexibility procurement is being tested through approved pilot projects, including EDGE by e-distribuzione and RomeFlex by Areti. Their continuation for 2026 was approved through ARERA Resolutions 508/2025/R/eel and 527/2025/R/eel respectively. Participation depends on the relevant network areas, resource qualification and project-specific procurement rules.
Every claim on this page has a concrete source: the legal foundation is Decreto Legislativo 8 novembre 2021, n. 210 (Article 23 for the planning task); local ancillary-service procurement by DSOs is ARERA deliberazione 352/2021/R/eel of 3 August 2021 (EDGE and RomeFlex continued for 2026 through 508/2025/R/eel and 527/2025/R/eel); the TIDE is ARERA deliberazione 345/2023/R/eel of 25 July 2023, governing dispatching since 1 January 2025 with a consolidation phase from 1 February 2026. We keep this page current — if you spot something outdated, tell us. We mean it.
See where, when and how much flexibility your grid actually needs before you procure it — quantified, on your own data.
