In response to the planned split of the German-Austrian price zone, the European Energy Exchange (EEX) will launch a financially settled power future for the Austrian market area.
Scheduled to launch on 26 June 2017, the new products will comprise base and peak contracts with a monthly, quarterly and yearly maturity. With the introduction, EEX provides an additional product suite that allows exchange members to hedge against prices changes in the domestic Austrian market.
After consultation with market participants, EEX will also extend the Phelix-DE product suite with further products. On 26 June, day and week contracts for base and peak power delivery will be added to the product portfolio. On this day EEX will also list Phelix-DE products on the non-MTF trading venue, covering monthly, quarterly and yearly maturities (baseload and peakload). In addition, options on the German Phelix-DE future will be made available as of 28 June.
“Our decision to launch Austrian power futures and to extend the Phelix DE-Futures follows the request from our market participants,” says Peter Reitz (pictured), chief executive officer of EEX. “These new products have been created as a direct result of the planned split of the current German-Austrian price zone, an initiative that we still think is a step in the wrong direction. However, at this stage it’s essential for us to provide solutions and to support the market participants in view of the fact that the Federal Network Agency and E-Control have agreed on a framework for congestion management at the German-Austrian border.”
The new Phelix-DE & Phelix-AT Futures will be settled against the common German-Austrian Day-Ahead auction price until the split becomes effective. Thereafter the Phelix-DE Futures will be settled against a German Day-Ahead auction price and the Phelix-AT Futures will be settled against an Austrian Day-Ahead auction price.
EEX has introduced Phelix-DE Futures on 25 April 2017. Until 15 May, a volume of 4,086,900 MWh has been traded while 95,613,294 MWh have been traded in the existing Phelix DE/AT Future in the same period.
