Market Coupling: interconnection of electricity markets in Europe. SFÉRA participated in project as software developer

On June, 17, 2021, the Slovak day-ahead electricity market was integrated with electricity markets of the rest of Europe. By linking the countries that participated in the Interim Coupling project, where Slovakia took part as well, a single day-ahead electricity market was created. In the unified European market, there are 23 participating countries.

In process of market coupling of the day-ahead electricity market, Slovakia is represented by Slovenská elektrizačná prenosová sústava, a.s., and OKTE, a.s. 

The XMtrade^®/ISOT system was developed and managed for OKTE, a.s., by SFÉRA, a.s. XMtrade^®/ISOT is a platform for electricity trading on the intraday market and for cross-border trading.

Until June, 17, 2021, there were two market zones for the day-ahead electricity market in Europe: Market Regional Coupling and 4M MC (Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania). Trading between two market zones took place in two places through the so-called explicit auctions and explicit allocation of transmission capacity for volume of electricity traded at transmission system operators. The Interim Coupling project has been prepared for the interconnection of both market zones for a long time.

Its launch from June, 17, 2021 canceled explicit auctions and replaced auctions with implicit ones between the 4M MC countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania) and their neighboring countries - Germany, Poland and Austria at 6 border points PL-DE, PL-CZ, PL-SK, CZ-DE, CZ-AT, HU-AT. Thus, 4M MC countries integrated into the single European electricity market (Single Day-Ahead Coupling). Implicit auctions will enable the sale, purchase and allocation of transmission capacities in electricity systems from one place, in one common market.

The XMtrade^®/ISOT system was developed and managed for OKTE, a.s., by SFÉRA, a.s. XMtrade^®/ISOT is a platform for electricity trading on the intraday market and for cross-border trading.

XMtrade^®/ISOT provides all the necessary functionality for organization of the day-ahead market in the form of auction and the intraday market in the form of continuous trading. It enables the organization of the day-ahead and intraday market in a local mode for one or more trading areas or in a cross-border market interconnection mode.

Analysis and subsequent implementation of changes for Interim Coupling in the system was done by SFÉRA, a.s., during 2020. From January 2021, international testing took place, where SFÉRA provided complex support for the operator of the day-ahead electricity market. The first days of operation checked the stability of the solution with all parties involved, and trading has been successful since the first day.

Interim Coupling is a major milestone in short-term trading, which will streamline cross-border trading and increase the liquidity of markets in Europe.

Libor Láznička, Director of the Development Department, commented on other integration activities on behalf of SFÉRA, a.s.

"Development of the electricity market continues intensively. For the day-ahead market, this is the Core Flow Based Market Coupling project, which will provide a new approach in calculation of available capacities based on physical flows. At the same time, a project of interconnection of the Slovak intraday market with the European Single Intraday Coupling solution is currently underway. We will gradually provide further information on the individual steps in both projects. "

SFÉRA, a.s., makes every effort to continue to be the first-choice partner in the field of IT solutions for energy market participants in Slovakia and a reliable partner for projects that support the development of the regional electricity market in Europe.