The Role of Competition in the Construction of the EU Internal Energy Market From the Prism of the Power Exchange

Zohra Boumedhel, Head of Legal Affairs, EPEX SPOT, France
Antoine Donne, Legal Counsel, EPEX SPOT, France

Power Exchanges (PX) have been at the cornerstone of the liberalisation of the wholesale electricity market in the 1990s and then of the integration of the single internal electricity market in the EU via so called ’market coupling’ initiatives. However, competition between PXs struggled to rise for various reasons that will be addressed in this paper. A new EU regulation has recently put PXs at the core of the market integration and is paving the way to a new era of liberalisation to achieve effective competition between PXs. In order to assess the benefits brought by competitive PXs to the Internal Energy Market, one will have to wait that the regulation on Capacity Allocation and Congestion Management (CACM Regulation) and competition is fully effective EU-wide. Until now, the pace of implementation has been uneven throughout Europe. In particular, the coexistence of monopoly NEMOs and competitive NEMOs, and the delay in the implementation of competition in some regions, create competitive disadvantages for new entrants.

Antoine Donne is a Legal Counsel at EPEX SPOT, the power exchange operating short-term electricity markets in Europe. He has experience in the energy sector. He graduated from Sorbonne Law School University in Paris. His main professional interest in the law are energy regulation but also digital regulation, in particular non-personal data, and IPR and IT topics.

The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT SE and its affiliates operate physical short-term electricity markets in Central Western Europe and the United Kingdom. As part of EEX Group, a group of companies serving international commodity markets, EPEX SPOT is committed to the creation of a pan-European power market. In 2018, its 289 members traded 567 TWh