Cooperation of Transmission System Operators and European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT allows for Integrated Swiss Intraday market
Dortmund / Frick / Leipzig / Stuttgart / Paris, 16/11/2012 – The Transmission System Operators (TSOs) Amprion and TransnetBW in Germany, RTE in France and Swissgrid in Switzerland are currently harmonizing their Intraday cross-border capacity allocation mechanisms on the Franco-German, Franco-Swiss and German-Swiss borders.
In parallel, the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT is planning to launch a Swiss Intraday market and offer its members the possibility to access Intraday cross-border capacity directly through trading on the Exchange platform.
The implementation of these improvements will allow a fully optimized use of the cross-border Intraday capacity between France, Germany/Austria and Switzerland. An integrated Franco-German/Austrian-Swiss Intraday market also enables better management of close-to-real time volume risks, in particular with respect to the integration of renewable energy into the grid. It aims also at raising the liquidity of the connected Intraday markets.
Many European TSOs have already harmonized their Intraday cross-border capacity allocation mechanisms using the existing Intraday Capacity Service, a platform of capacity allocation currently used on five borders (FR-CH, DE-CH, DE-FR, DE-NL, DE-DK1) by eight different TSOs in total. The TSOs explicitly allocate Intraday cross-border capacity in a continuous manner through this platform (see website: https://www.intraday-capacity.com). Based on the solution already implemented end of 2010 on the Franco-German border, Amprion, TransnetBW, RTE and Swissgrid will enable the implicit allocation of cross-border capacity by offering a non-exclusive connection of Power Exchanges’ trading systems to the capacity platform also for the Franco-Swiss and German-Swiss borders. The implicit capacity allocation system will be running in parallel to the explicit capacity allocation (OTC), ensuring a non-discriminatory access to the cross-border capacity according to the applicable allocation rules for each border.
Additionally, TSOs will update the capacity platform to offer the Intraday cross-border capacity at the Franco-German border and the Franco-Swiss border in units of 0.01 MW, instead of 1 MW as today, offering more flexibility to market participants (on the German-Swiss border units of 0.001 MW remain).
EPEX SPOT, when launching a Swiss Intraday market, will therefore be able to connect to the capacity platform in a non-exclusive way, and to integrate the French, Swiss and German/Austrian Intraday markets. EPEX SPOT’s continuous cross-border trading system (ComXerv) will be connected to the Intraday Capacity Service, while the clearing and the cross-border shipping of the energy traded will be performed by European Commodity Clearing AG (ECC AG), the clearing house for the EPEX SPOT markets. In this way, EPEX SPOT members can access Intraday cross-border capacity directly through the Exchange, simplifying cross-border trading and settlement operations. Thanks to a continuous matching of local and cross-border energy bids on EPEX SPOT Intraday trading system ComXerv, the implicit capacity allocation mechanism will fully optimize the use of cross-border Intraday capacity.
The respective national regulators are supporting this project, the implementation of these improvements is targeted for Q2 2013, pending to regulatory and EPEX SPOT Exchange Council approval. Using the existing infrastructure with minimal adaptations for existing market rules, the intention is to extend the open, flexible and efficient mechanism of Intraday capacity allocation fulfilling the needs of market participants. Consequently, the mechanism to be implemented will also offer the flexibility to smoothly migrate into the European Intraday solution currently being adopted by the NWE project.