EPEX SPOT Exchange Council: Intraday Migration And Single Exchange Membership As Further Milestones In APX/EPEX Integration - Launch Of The New Belgian-French & Belgian-Dutch Intraday Solution

At the quarterly meeting of the Exchange Council of the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT, the Council discussed further integration of EPEX SPOT and APX. One of the most significant milestones in integration is reached when M7, the trading system for the EPEX SPOT intraday markets in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland, is extended to the Netherlands and Belgium. M7 replaces the trading platform EuroLight that is currently used for local and cross-border Intraday trading in the Netherlands and Belgium. Migration to M7 will allow implicit coupling not only on the Belgian-Dutch border but also on the French-Belgian border.

The system migration is foreseen on 27 September 2016, with first local deliveries on the same day and first cross-border deliveries on 28 September. Further system migration will follow later this year when the Dutch and Belgian Day-Ahead markets will be migrated from EuroLight to the EPEX trading system ETS.

“The new implicit Belgian-French and Belgian-Dutch Intraday solution will connect the Belgian and Dutch Intraday markets to France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria and will further improve liquidity on the integrated intraday market”, says Bernhard Walter, Chairman of EPEX SPOT Exchange Council.

The Exchange Council acknowledges that the migration to a single trading system and harmonisation of rules and processes across the EPEX SPOT markets carries concrete advantages for exchange members: fixed costs reduction thanks to one trading system, access to multiple markets under one single exchange membership and one harmonised and consistent price list encompassing all EPEX markets. The exchange migration is expected to be finalised as of 1 January 2017. “One single exchange membership across the Central West European markets is an important milestone in the APX/EPEX SPOT integration and carries multiple tangible benefits for the members”, says Jean-François Conil-Lacoste, Chairman of the Management Board of EPEX SPOT.

The Exchange Council convened in its current form for the first time since the elections and new members joining in June 2016. It was its third meeting in 2016, held on 13 September in Rome and was chaired by Bernhard Walter.