Coupling of Czech day-ahead market with rest of Europe moves a step closer

The national regulatory authorities of Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania have asked transmission system operators and nominated electricity market operators in those countries, in a joint letter, to launch an interim project to couple day-ahead electricity markets. The Czech day-ahead market has been coupled with the day-ahead markets of Slovakia, Hungary and Romania since November 2014.

According to published information, energy regulators from the countries concerned have requested the launch of an interim project to couple day-ahead electricity markets based on a coordinated net transmission capacity (NTC) approach.

The aim of the DE-AT-PL-4M MC project is to merge the cooperation of the 4M MC countries, comprising the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, with the Multi-Regional Coupling (MRC) project, which includes 19 European countries with combined electricity consumption accounting for 85 % of total electricity consumption in Europe.

“The timely implementation of the DE-AT-PL-4M MC project will introduce the benefits of implicit allocation of day-ahead cross-border capacity at the borders between Hungary and Austria (HU-AT), Austria and the Czech Republic (AT-CZ), the Czech Republic and Germany (CZ-DE), Germany and Poland (DE-PL), the Czech Republic and Poland (CZ-PL), and Poland and Slovakia (PL-SK), before the introduction of the Core Flow-Based Market Coupling (FBMC) project based on physical flows,” the Czech Energy Regulatory Office says of the project.

Coupling the Czech day-ahead market with foreign markets

Since November 2014, the Czech Republic has participated in the 4M Market Coupling (4M MC) project, which couples the day-ahead electricity markets of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. This project was preceded by a project coupling the day-ahead markets of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, launched in 2012.

A total of 16,4 TWh of electricity was traded on the Czech day-ahead market in the first nine months of 2018. Under the above-mentioned coupling of day-ahead markets with Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, around 2,9 TWh was transmitted over cross-border lines from the Czech Republic to Slovakia during that period, while 1,7 TWh of electricity flowed in the opposite direction.