European electricity market coupling moves forward

The ongoing project to integrate Europe’s electricity markets moved forward this week with the successful coupling of northwestern and southwestern European market regions, in a bid to increase the efficiency of cross-border power flows and improve security of supply.

Markets spanning Europe, from Portugal to Finland, are now linked through a price calculation system to allow the simultaneous calculation of electricity prices and cross-border flows across the region to create a common market for power bought for day-ahead delivery.

“This will bring a benefit for end-consumers derived from a more efficient use of the power system and cross-border infrastructures as a consequence of a stronger coordination between energy markets,” said a joint statement from the project partners which include the official energy exchanges across all relevant countries.

In February this year the UK power market joined the market coupling initiative, which Ofgem hailed as “an important first step towards a more open European electricity market where our interconnectors can be used more efficiently to transport power to where it is needed.”

In addition the regulator said further integration of Europe’s power markets could help improve liquidity for the UK.
The UK is linked to Europe through the 2 GW IFA interconnector with France and the 1 GW BritNed cable with the Netherlands.Through both cables the UK is predominantly a net importer of power.

The countries now included in the market coupling initiative include Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany and Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

The project members said further extensions of the market coupling using the price coupling calculation are planned.