14/02/2014 Following the postponement of the initially planned go-live date in November 2013, day-ahead market coupling in the North-Western Europe (NWE) region was successfully launched last week. As a strong proponent of European market integration, EURELECTRIC welcomed the go-live as an important milestone towards building integrated spot markets, but also stressed that more progress was needed to meet the EU’s political aspiration of an Internal Energy Market by 2014. The project links organised electricity markets – power exchanges – covering 15 European countries. Market coupling will significantly enhance the development of the EU Internal Energy Market by favouring price convergence and thus fostering competition.
The price coupling of electricity markets in North-Western Europe, introduced on 4 February, allows power exchanges to use cross-border transmission capacity as a way to minimise price spreads between markets. Such price differences across markets have become even more pronounced as the flows of electricity on the network have become more unpredictable, due to the increased penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. This project should increase price convergence, thereby fostering competition and providing European electricity consumers with tangible benefits such as a greater choice of services.
The new cross-border trading platform integrates 15 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland (via the SwePol Link) and Sweden), accounting for 75% of the European electricity market. As of 4 February, Spain and Portugal, which have operated as an integrated market since 2010, can also use the same market coupling platform and contractual procedures. The Iberian Peninsula should fully join the NWE region by the middle of the year, while their Italian and Slovenian counterparts are expected to do so by the end of 2014. EURELECTRIC has stressed that other regions like Central East and South East should rapidly make clear when they will be ready to join, to fulfil the political aspiration of completing the Internal Energy Market by the end of this year.
As regards cross-border coupling of intraday electricity markets, power exchanges are currently aiming for a go-live by the end of this year. The ACER Electricity Stakeholder Advisory Group (AESAG) was told in early January that power exchanges have selected an IT provider and are working on an early start agreement.
