15-minute Intraday call auction to launch 9 December 2014
A price signal for Germany on 15-minute basis provides flexibility with a value
Paris / Leipzig, 13 November 2014 – The 15-minute call auction on the German Intraday market is scheduled to launch on 9 December 2014 (trading day). Member tests have been conducted successfully. 60 Exchange Members have shown interest in the new segment so far.
The new 15-minute call auction on the German Intraday market is designed to cope better with the emerging flexibility challenges of power markets. It will take place daily at 3 pm, before the opening of the continuous Intraday market for 15-minute contracts at 4 pm, and it will cover the 96 15-minute contracts for the next calendar day from midnight on. The auction will run on the well-known ETS used for EPEX SPOT’s Day-Ahead markets. The calculation of prices and vol-umes will be performed using Euphemia, a tool co-developed by EPEX SPOT in the framework of the Price Coupling of Regions initiative. More specifications on the 15-minute auction can be found in the factsheet on the 15-minute Intraday call auction .
15-minute contracts help fine-tuning portfolios after the Day-Ahead auction for hourly contracts at noon and facilitate trading for intra-hour variations in production and consumption. The 15-minute auction will be incorporated in the Intraday market segment, as it is held after the day-ahead nomination deadline at 2.30 pm in Germany. It will prove to be a valuable tool for market participants as it will help them fulfilling their balance requirements towards German transmission system operators already on the calendar day before delivery.
The already existing 15-minute prices that emerge on the continuous Intraday market remunerate more accurately flexible capacity able to respond to 15-minute variations in production and consumption. The auction further fosters this idea by concentrating liquidity and creating the most robust possible price reference. “The value of flexibility is one of the key issues power markets need to tackle. This new auction is the right tool to determine a clear cut price signal on 15-minute basis in Germany – and to reveal the value of flexibility”, says Jean-François Conil-Lacoste, Chairman of the Management Board of EPEX SPOT.
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The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT SE operates the power spot markets for Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland (Day-Ahead and Intraday). Together these countries account for more than one third of the European power consumption. EPEX SPOT also acts as market operating service provider for the Hungarian Power Exchange HUPX and operates the coupling between the Czech, the Slovak, the Hungarian and soon the Romanian markets on behalf of the local Exchanges. It is a European company (Societas Europaea) based in Paris with branches in Leipzig, Bern and Vienna. Over 220 companies from Europe are active on EPEX SPOT. 312 TWh were traded on EPEX SPOT’s power markets in the first ten months of 2014.