The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT and the clearing house European Commodity Clearing (ECC) have introduced 30-minute continuous trading of power spot contracts in the intraday markets in France, Germany and Switzerland.
Some 450.45 MWh have been traded during the first 24 hours, with 118.65 MWh in France, 328.20 MWh in Germany and 3.6 MWh in Switzerland.
Cross-border trades accounted for 48 per cent of the total traded volume.
Cross-border capacity allocation in 30-minute-sequences by the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) Amprion, RTE, Swissgrid and TransnetBW was already possible since 2015. As the central counterparty of all EPEX SPOT transactions, ECC assumes clearing and settlement of the new contracts.
The new 30-minute contracts on the continuous intraday markets are designed to manage emerging flexibility challenges of power markets more efficiently. Until now, the smallest time unit traded on the French intraday market was fixed to one hour.
“This product brings a true benefit to our customers. The introduction of the 30-minute contracts will help French, German and Swiss market participants to fulfil their balance requirements towards the French transmission system operator and will give further trading possibilities with the German and Swiss members,” says Jonas Törnquist, chief operating officer of EPEX SPOT.
The local trading of half-hour contracts for the next day opens at 15:30 in France, Germany and Switzerland, right between the opening of the hourly and quarterly contracts at 15:00 and 16:00 respectively. Local trading closes 30 minutes before the start of delivery in France and Germany and 60 minutes before the start of delivery in Switzerland.
The timings of cross-border trading of half-hour contracts are aligned with the timings of capacity allocation on the Franco-German and Franco-Swiss borders, meaning cross-border trades open at 18:00 for the German-Swiss border and at 21:05 for the Franco-German and Franco-Swiss borders.
