Czech day-ahead market to be coupled with the rest of Europe in 2020

The countries participating in the 4M Market Coupling (4M MC) project, including the Czech Republic, will be coupled with the Multi Regional Coupling (MRC) project by the end of 2020. MRC involves 19 European countries with aggregate electricity consumption equivalent to 85 % of total consumption in Europe. The Czech day-ahead market will thus follow the intraday market, which was coupled with other European countries on 19 November 2019. 

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

The expected coupling of the Czech day-ahead market with the rest of Europe should take place in the third quarter of 2020, according to a joint press release by nominated electricity market operators and transmission system operators from Austria, Germany, Poland and the 4M MC countries.

The nominated market operators and transmission system operators also announced that the DE-AT-PL-4M MC project, also referred to as Interim Coupling, has completed the technical solution development phase and is now entering the implementation phase.

“The aim of the project is to couple the borders of the regional 4M MC project with pan-European MRC by introducing implicit capacity allocation based on the NTC capacity calculation method at six specific borders (PL-DE, PL-CZ, PL-SK, CZ-DE, CZ-AT, HU-AT). Coupling the 4M MC countries with MRC will create a single day-ahead electricity market across 23 European countries,” the market operators and transmission system operators said in a joint press release.

Successful project to couple intraday electricity markets

The project to couple the Czech day-ahead electricity market with the rest of Europe will follow the successful project to couple intraday electricity markets.

The Czech Republic joined the project known as Single Intraday Coupling (SIDC) on 19 November 2019 as part of the so-called second implementation wave, together with Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Croatia. These countries joined 14 countries already operating SIDC (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Lithuania, Latvia, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Austria, Spain and Sweden).

As Czech electricity market operator OTE, a.s., recently stated, the first 14 days of operation of the Czech intraday electricity market within SIDC confirmed its success.

“The results of the first fourteen days of operation have positively exceeded our expectations,” said Jakub Šrom, head of the Trading Department.

According to OTE, a.s., nearly 163 GWh of electricity was traded on the intraday market during the first 14 days, approximately 30 % of the volume traded during the whole of 2018, when 550 GWh was traded on the intraday market.

“Of this, 105 816 MWh was exported, 51 420 MWh was imported and 4 391 MWh was traded domestically. Coupling led to a tenfold increase in concluded trades on the intraday market, from an average of just under 400 trades per day to just under 4 000 trades per day. On average, just under 500 trades are concluded on this market every hour,” OTE, a.s. said in a press release.

According to the Czech market operator, these trades were conducted not only with neighbouring countries but with all 20 countries participating in SIDC alongside the Czech Republic. As expected, the largest volume was traded with Germany (around 120 GWh in approximately 40 thousand trades).

“This is a significant step in market integration and international cooperation, confirming the market operator’s role as a fully-fledged and reliable partner in such a demanding international project involving many European countries,” OTE, a.s. added.