EEX: Increasing Professionalization Of Electricity Trading - 21 Participants On Board From Very First Day - Meeting The Needs Of The German Market

"The launch of EEX will advance the professionalization of electricity trading," said the two EEX Executive Board members Christian Geyer and Hans E. Schweickardt in Frankfurt on Wednesday. "Progressive portfolio management with financial-sector trading techniques is coming to the fore, in which long- and short-term contracts, exchange-based trading and OTC trading, complement each other," as Geyer and Schweickardt put it. "The standards that have to be met by trading systems will continue to rise as a result."

EEX successfully initiated electricity trading on the spot market with 21 participants from five countries on Tuesday: 8 supraregional utilities, 8 regional utilities and 5 trading companies are taking part in trading from the very first day. 5 banks in electricity clearing are responsible for the financial clearing and settlement of the transactions. Further participants will start trading in the weeks ahead.

A total of 12,223 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity were traded on Tuesday. Of this total, 451 MWh were traded in hours and a total of 11,772 MWh were traded in blocks. In block trading 5,976 MWh was traded in base load blocks and 5,796 MWh was traded in peak load blocks. EEX expects 20 percent of the electricity consumption in Germany to be traded on electricity exchanges in the long term.

According to the exchange, long-term success on the market depends on being able to make the market participants an interesting offer that takes their expectations of the traded products into account. The EEX offer to trade in blocks and hours, it said, is a reflection of the situation on the German market.