On behalf of EMCC Nord Pool Spot announces:
During the first days of market coupling, we saw mixed results as the switch from simulation environment to live operation produced flaws on Tuesday.
What happened?
On Monday and Wednesday, the market coupling process worked in line with expectations.
On Tuesday, the market coupling system experienced a calculation timeout which was due to a technical failure of a parameter. Shortly after the decision to decouple, the IT vendor fixed the failure.
The algorithm itself was not affected. This was confirmed by another calculation in the productive system, which we performed with original trading data from 10th November. This calculation brought appropriate results. Furthermore, these results were validated by another calculation in the simulation environment, which brought identical results.
Although an incident management procedure had been agreed on, yesterday’s events indicated that it was not equally understood by all involved parties. Therefore all parties agreed to redefine the incident management timeline shortly.
Is Tuesday’s failure related to the problems experienced last year?
No, EMCC has improved both the algorithm and the volume coupling model, which provide Nord Pool Spot with the elasticity of the German market. Thus, the calculation algorithm works appropriately. Last year the algorithm was not aligned closely enough to the power exchanges’ systems and constraints.
Why was Tuesday’s failure not anticipated?
Extensive tests have been carried out together with EMCC’s IT vendor and the involved power exchanges. Moreover, the tests were accompanied by external analysts. In more than 5,000 hours tested, this had not occurred.
Will this happen again?
No. The IT vendor has made sure that the flaw has been resolved. However, it should be considered that minor problems may occur when launching new IT services, switching from simulation to live operation.
(How) will market coupling proceed?
EMCC and all shareholders are certain that volume market coupling on the Danish-German border is a first, important step towards a more global price coupling scheme.
For more information on the EMCC algorithm and our test procedures, please have a look at our download center.
European Market Coupling Company
European Market Coupling Company GmbH was established as central auction office for market coupling between Germany and the Nordic countries. The company carries out day-ahead congestion management services on the two interconnectors between Germany and Denmark, DK West (950 MW north / 1,500 MW south) and DK East (550 MW north and south).The aim is to improve market efficiency of cross-border congestion management based on implicit auctions. EMCC was founded in Hamburg in August 2008 as a joint venture of EEX, Energinet.dk, transpower, NPS and Vattenfall Europe Transmission. It is designed to allow the extension of its services to other interconnectors or markets.
For further information, please contact EMCC:
European Market Coupling Company GmbH
Hopfenmarkt 31, 20457 Hamburg, Germany
Vivien Neubert, PR Manager, Phone +49 160 441 64 53
Enno Böttcher, Managing Director, Phone +49 40 369 054 60
11th November 2009