Current status of the DE-AT-PL-4M MC (Interim Coupling) Project

Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Bratislava

9th November 2020

The Nominated Electricity Market Operators (NEMOs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) from Austria, Germany, Poland and the 4M Market Coupling (4M MC) countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, hereby inform stakeholders about the current status and planning of the project following the guidance received from European Commission (EC) on 22nd September 2020 and from Interim Coupling National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) on 26th October 2020, and the way forward as agreed with concerned NRAs.

The DE-AT-PL-4M MC Project, also referred to as Interim Coupling project aims to connect the borders of 4M MC with the Multi-Regional Coupling (MRC) by introducing Net Transmission Capacity based (NTC-based) implicit capacity allocation on six borders (PL-DE, PL-CZ, PL-SK, CZ-DE, CZ-AT, HU-AT). The project has completed the design phase and entered its implementation phase in the end of 2019. Due to implementation bottlenecks identified in Q1 2020, the project was delayed compared to the original planning. After the guidance from the EC and NRAs was received, the project parties have prepared a detailed revised roadmap and discussed it with the concerned National Regulatory Authorities on 16th October 2020. Based on the updated planning, the joint regional testing phase of the project is expected to start at the end of January 2021, while tests with market participants are now planned in the second half of April 2021. The new go-live window of the project is foreseen for May 2021.

Market participants will be informed about the next steps and detailed information about the relevant tests in due time.