ACER’s 2025 electricity monitoring report reviews progress in integrating EU electricity markets. It examines forward, day-ahead, intraday and balancing markets, and identifies where rules and projects are delayed.
This year’s edition also highlights weather-driven price volatility, which occurs when unusually low renewable generation coincides with higher-than-normal demand due to exceptional weather conditions.
What trends did ACER find in 2024?
- EU market integration brings value and helps mitigate high electricity prices.
- Price volatility shows that more flexibility is needed.
- Long-term markets remain illiquid, limiting investment signals.
- Cross-border integration reduces costs, but project delays persist.
- Balancing integration generated €1.6 billion in welfare gains.
- Forward markets lack depth; Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are growing but vary widely in design.
- Day-ahead integration is consolidating and intraday markets are evolving.
What are ACER’s recommendations?
ACER points to several priorities that are key to resilience:
- Reinforcing flexibility by investing in demand response, storage and backup generation.
- Accelerating delivery of delayed cross-border projects through timely completion of interconnectors and adoption of flow-based capacity allocation in intraday markets.
- Broadening transmission system operators' (TSOs') participation in balancing platforms to reduce costs and volatility and ensure more efficient system balancing.
- Strengthening forward markets with more active long-term trading and well-designed PPAs and Contracts for Difference (CfDs).
- Moving to flow-based allocation in the intraday timeframe to ensure efficient capacity use and reduce congestion-related costs.
- Enhancing monitoring and enforcement to ensure rules are applied consistently and consumers benefit.
