The 12-month futures will be launched this summer, the three-month futures in the fall. The trading participants will start the trading simulation for the new products in mid-June. The baseload futures with a one-year cycle, for example, reflect the value of a constant delivery of one megawatt hour of electricity for every day of a year for up to three years in advance; the futures with a quarterly cycle are based on a constant delivery of electricity for up to seven quarters.
"The new three-month and 12-month futures offer the trading participants greater flexibility. Experience in the OTC market shows that these products are demanded by the market," was the reason given by the largest German electricity exchange for introducing the new product family.
Up to now, EEX has been offering futures contracts with terms of one to 18 months on baseload and peakload blocks in its electricity futures market. A baseload block for one calendar day describes the continuous delivery of one megawatt of electricity per hour for the time from midnight to midnight the following day; weekday peakload blocks cover the time period from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
EEX has also admitted four new participants to trading in its futures market. e&t Energiehandelsgesellschaft, Österreichische Elektrizitätswirtschafts AG, GEW Köln AG and Morgan Stanley & Co., the first UK-company to trade on the EEX derivatives market, have been admitted.
With the new admissions, the EEX futures market now has 28 participants from four countries trading futures on electricity. Roughly 2.8 TWh (terrawatt hours) of electricity have already been traded on the integrated spot and futures market since the futures market was launched on March 1 this year.
