ELENA - From Commissioning to Operation

In 2021 the Extra Low ENergy Antiproton ring (ELENA) moved from commissioning into the physics production phase providing 100 keV antiprotons to the newly connected experiments paving the way to an improved trapping efficiency by one to two orders of magnitude compared to the AD era. After recalling the major work undertaken during the CERN Long Shutdown 2 (2019-2020) in the antiproton deceleration complex, details will be given on the ELENA ring and the new electrostatic transfer line beam commissioning using an ion source. Sub-sequentially, the progress from commissioning with ions to operation with antiprotons will be described with emphasis on the achieved beam performance. Finally, the impact on the performance of the main hardware systems will be reviewed.