Futures Trading in Electricity At EEX Off To A Good Start - 25.000 Megawatt Hours Of Electricity Traded Within First 2 Hours - 20 Market Participants From Five Countries On Board For The Launch - E.on, HEW And RWE Active As Market Makers

"Today we're electrifying the German market," were the words used by the two EEX Executive Board members Christian Geyer and Hans E. Schweickardt today to kick off the first German derivatives market for electricity at 10.00 a.m. Within the first two hours from 10.00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. 20 participants from three countries traded 25.000 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity via the Eurex trading system. The volumes on the derivatives market in the first two hours allready exceded the average daily volume on the EEX spot.

E.on Trading, Hamburgische Electricitäts Werke (HWE) and RWE Trading are active as Designated Market Makers in the futures market. Designated Market Makers enter binding orders in the trading system for at least 50 percent of the trading period, thus boosting the liquidity in trading.

The EEX derivatives market enables participants to trade in futures. Participants can use futures contracts to hedge their positions in the physical electricity market. The EEX derivatives market was launched with two futures, one on base load and the other on peak load. The contracts can have terms of one month to 18 months.