ACER Market Monitoring Report 2016 - Electricity

Publishing date: 06/10/2017 Document title: ACER Market Monitoring Report 2016 - Electricity

We appreciate your feedback

Please click on the icon to take a 5’ online survey and provide your feedback about this document

Share this document ACER/CEER Annual Report on the Results of Monitoring the Internal Electricity and Gas Markets in 2016 Electricity Wholesale Markets Volume October 2017 Legal notice

The joint publication of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and the Council of European Energy Regulators is protected by copyright. The Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and the Council of European Energy Regulators accept no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of the data contained in this document.

© Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators and the Council of European Energy Regulators, 2017 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. ACER/CEER ANNUAL REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING THE INTERNAL ELECTRICITY MARKETS IN 2016

ACER/CEER Annual Report on the Results of Monitoring the Internal Electricity and Gas Markets in 2016 Electricity Wholesale Markets Volume October 2017

The support of the Energy Community Secretariat in coordinating the collection and in analysing the information related to the Energy Community Contracting Parties is gratefully acknowledged.

If you have any queries relating to this report, please contact:

ACER CEER

Mr David Merino Mr Andrew Ebrill T +386 (0)8 2053 417 T +32 (0)2 788 73 35 E [email protected] E [email protected]

Trg republike 3 Cours Saint-Michel 30a, box F 1000 Ljubljana 1040 Brussels Slovenia Belgium

3 ACER/CEER ANNUAL REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING THE INTERNAL ELECTRICITY MARKETS IN 2016

Contents

Executive Summary ...... 5

Recommendations...... 12

1 Introduction...... 14

2 Key developments in 2016...... 15 2.1 Evolution of electricity wholesale prices ...... 15 2.2 Price convergence...... 18

3 Available cross-zonal capacity...... 21 3.1 Methodological improvements...... 21 3.2 Amount of cross-zonal capacity made available to the market...... 24 3.2.1 Evolution of commercial cross-zonal capacity...... 24 3.2.2 Ratio between commercial and benchmark cross-zonal capacity...... 27 3.3 Factors impacting commercial cross-zonal capacity...... 30 3.3.1 Level of coordination...... 31 3.3.2 Discrimination between internal and cross-zonal exchanges ...... 35 3.4 Remedial actions...... 38

4 Efficient use of available cross-zonal capacity ...... 40 4.1 Forward markets...... 40 4.2 Day-ahead markets...... 42 4.2.1 Progress in day-ahead market coupling ...... 42 4.2.2 Gross welfare benefit of better use of the existing network...... 44 4.3 Intraday markets...... 46 4.3.1 Evolution of intraday market liquidity...... 46 4.3.2 Intraday use of cross-zonal capacity...... 48 4.4 Balancing markets...... 49 4.4.1 Balancing (capacity and energy) and imbalance prices...... 49 4.4.2 Cross-zonal exchange of balancing services...... 53

5 Capacity mechanisms and generation adequacy...... 55 5.1 Situation in capacity mechanisms ...... 55 5.2 Treatment of interconnectors in adequacy assessments...... 56

Annex 1: Additional figures and tables...... 61 Annex 2: Methodology for calculating the benchmark capacity for CNTC and FB CC methods ...... 67 Annex 3: Adapted scoring methodology for the level of fulfilment of capacity calculation requirements...... 70 Annex 4: Unscheduled flows...... 72

4 ACER/CEER ANNUAL REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING THE INTERNAL ELECTRICITY MARKETS IN 2016

Executive Summary

Key developments in 2016

1 The downward trend in wholesale electricity prices observed in previous years continued in 2016. In parallel, price spikes occurred significantly more frequently than in previous years, with 1,195 occurrences in Europe in 2016, which is around five times the average over the preceding four years. These spikes were observed more often in the Member States (MSs) with the tightest adequacy margins, such as Belgium, Finland, France and Great Britain. Although these spikes may reflect efficient price formation at times of scarcity, they also highlight the importance of addressing security of supply efficiently and in a coordinated manner.

2 In 2016, different degrees of price convergence were observed across Europe. The average absolute day- ahead (DA) price spreads ranged from less than 0.5 euros/MWh on the borders between Portugal and Spain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and between Latvia and Lithuania, to 10 euros/MWh or more on all British borders, the borders between Austria and Italy, and between Germany and Poland (see Table i). This confirms the relevance of maximising the amount of tradable cross-zonal capacity, particularly on borders with the highest price spreads.

Table i: Borders with the biggest DA price differentials– 2012–2016 (euros/MWh)

Average hourly price differentials Average of absolute hourly price differentials Average Average Border 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2012-2016 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2012-2016 NL-GB -7.1 -7.1 -11.0 -15.6 -16.9 -11.5 9.1 8.8 11.2 15.8 17.0 12.4 FR-GB -8.2 -15.8 -17.6 -17.2 -12.4 -14.2 13.4 17.4 17.7 17.5 15.4 16.3 IE-GB 11.6 10.0 8.1 -1.5 -4.0 4.9 16.9 18.6 17.7 15.2 13.8 16.4 AT-IT -31.5 -23.8 -17.6 -21.1 -13.7 -21.5 31.5 24.1 17.7 21.1 13.7 21.6 DE-PL 1.1 1.1 -10.2 -5.9 -7.5 -4.3 7.4 8.2 11.7 8.6 10.0 9.2 CH-DE 6.9 7.0 4.0 8.6 8.9 7.1 9.1 9.3 5.6 9.8 9.5 8.7 AT-CH -6.9 -7.0 -4.0 -8.6 -8.9 -7.1 9.1 9.3 5.6 9.8 9.5 8.7 PL-SE-4 7.3 -3.3 11.1 14.6 6.9 7.3 10.6 5.2 11.9 15.3 9.2 10.4 CZ-PL 0.9 0.1 -10.0 -5.2 -5.3 -3.9 6.5 7.8 11.2 7.9 9.1 8.5 PL-SK -1.4 -0.6 9.3 4.0 5.0 3.3 6.9 8.1 11.1 8.1 9.1 8.7

Source: ACER calculations based on data provided by National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) through the EW template (2017), ENTSO-E and Nordpool Spot. Note: A negative average DA price differential indicates that the average price was lower in the first member of the pair of bidding zones identifying a border, e.g. prices were lower in the Netherlands than in Great Britain in all years. The borders are ranked based on the 2016 average absolute price differentials. The average absolute price differentials (right side of the table) are higher than the ‘simple’ spreads (left side) where negative and positive price spreads are netted.

3 The Baltic, the Core (Central-West Europe (CWE))1 and the South-West Europe (SWE) regions recorded the highest annual increases in the frequency of intraregional full price convergence in 2016. In these three regions, the DA price differential was, respectively, below 1 euro/MWh in 71%, 39% and 30% of the hours in 2016. The factors explaining these developments include investments in new interconnector lines in the Baltic and SWE regions and the go-live of Flow-Based Market Coupling (FBMC) in the Core (CWE) region.

1 Bidding zones are grouped into regions, as follows: the Baltic region (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), the Central-East Europe (CEE) region (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), the CWE region (Belgium, France, Germany/Austria/Luxembourg and the Netherlands), the Ireland and United Kingdom region (IU) (the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom), the Nordic region (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and the SWE region (France, Portugal and Spain). These regions are in line with Agency Decision No 06/2016 of 17 November 2016 on the TSOs’ proposal for the determination of CCRs, except for the CWE and CEE regions, which are identified throughout this document as the Core (CWE) region and the Core (CEE) region, for consistency with previous years’ MMRs. The Decision is available at: http://www.acer.europa.eu/Official_documents/Acts_of_the_Agency/Individual%20decisions/ACER%20 Decision%2006-2016%20on%20CCR.pdf. 5 ACER/CEER ANNUAL REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF MONITORING THE INTERNAL ELECTRICITY MARKETS IN 201