N2EX ramps up intraday power trade offering

The UK’s largest power trading exchange is poised to build on its newly relaunched intraday trading platform after steadily losing market share to its smaller rival in recent months.

N2EX pulled its intraday trade offering from the market in March 2014 in order to overhaul the system, and last month rolled out the first phase of the revamped web-based interface in the UK on 10 November.

“Over the coming weeks our members can expect to see some exciting new features in Intraday Web which we believe will further contribute to the excellent user experience of the platform,” the exchange said.

Features include a split market information screen, improved product sorting and improved platform settings.

The relaunch could help the exchange reclaim market share from smaller rival APX which in recent months eroded N2EX’s market share.

Government data shows that in January of this year exchange traded volumes were split between N2EX with 42 per cent and APX with just 6 per cent of the total volumes traded the day before delivery. The remaining 52 per cent of electricity consumed was not traded via an exchange, the data shows.

Within two months APX saw its share of the day-ahead market double to 12 per cent and continue to grow to reach 17 per cent of the market in June.

By contrast N2EX has seen its share shrink from 42 per cent to 35 per cent of consumption.

Currently UK traders can use either N2EX or APX to take part in the UK day-ahead auction. Both exchanges are linked to produce the same result, which in turn is linked to other north-west European exchanges through a price coupling algorithm. This enables price coupling across the region’s day-ahead electricity markets to increase the efficient use of interconnectors.