European Power Exchange

EPEX SPOT operates day-ahead power markets for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany-Luxemburg, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland. These Day-Ahead markets are organised through an auction process, matching once a day supply and demand curves and thus fixing prices in an anonymous, yet transparent and secured manner. Members of the Exchange enter their orders for hourly quantities of power into the order book which is closed on 11 am for Switzerland and on 12 pm for all other markets. EPEX SPOT calculates the offer and demand curves and their intersection for each hour of the following day. Results are published from 9.30 am GMT (Great Britain), 11.10 am (Switzerland) and 12.55 pm (all other markets).[15]

The Central-Western European countries, except for Great Britain and Switzerland, and the markets of the Nordic countries are connected through a mechanism called Market Coupling. It links the electricity markets of the member countries by a price coupling solution in order to optimize the use of cross-border capacities between these countries, increasing the gains in social welfare on all markets.[16]

EPEX SPOT also operates intraday power markets for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany-Luxemburg, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The Intraday markets are organized by continuous trading – orders of the members are entered perpetually into the order book. As soon as two orders match, the trade is executed. Contracts for hourly, half-hourly and quarter-hourly quantities of power can be traded up to 5 minutes before delivery.[17] The Intraday trading system used by EPEX SPOT, M7, allows simultaneous cross-border trades on the Exchange and via OTC. The continuous Intraday markets of EPEX SPOT, except for Great Britain and Switzerland, are coupled through the pan-European Single Intraday Coupling.[18]

In December 2011, EPEX SPOT introduced 15-minute contracts on the continuous Intraday market in Germany. These contracts facilitate trading with intermittent power sources and help dealing with intra-hour variations in production and consumption.[19] With the launch of the Intraday market in Switzerland, 15-minute contracts were extended to this market.[20]

In December 2014, EPEX SPOT launched a call auction for 15-minute contracts on the German Intraday market in order to provide a reliable price signal on a quarter-hour basis. This auction at 3 pm CET provides at tool for balance responsible parties to fine-tune their portfolios on a 15-minute basis during production ramps and forecast deviations. In so doing, the price signal of 15-minute contracts contributes to the added value of flexibility and provides at the same time incentives for system stabilization.[21][22] In 2017, EPEX SPOT introduced 30-minute contracts on the French, German and Swiss continuous intraday market, enabling local and implicit cross-border trades on the respective borders.[23] These contracts are designed to manage emerging flexibility challenges of power markets more efficiently and help market participants to fulfill their balance requirements towards the French transmission system operator.[24] EPEX SPOT has been offering additional Intraday auctions in Austria, Belgium, and France since 2020,[25] in Great Britain since 2018 [26] and in Switzerland since 2019.