Hans-Bernd Menzel, the European Energy Exchange’s chief executive, has said that although market coupling is a step in the right direction towards European power market integration, the system as it stands is too complex.
At the moment, five countries are involved in CWE Market Coupling, covering central and western Europe: Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Introduced at the beginning of November, the market coupling method was jointly developed by power exchanges and the transmission system operators (national grids), which are responsible for transporting power within and between nations. The aim of the initiative is to encourage power prices in different regions to converge.
One aim of market coupling is for cross-border capacity to be used more efficiently. It creates a single platform for day-ahead electricity trading which will allow counterparties in different countries to trade without having to consider cross-border capacity reservation.
“[The system] is already...