SEEPEX launches Serbian Day-Ahead market

The South East European Power Exchange said it started the Serbian Day-Ahead market, with 1,925 MWh being traded on the first day. Baseload, the average price of all hourly prices of the day, came out at EUR 23.83 per MWh.

The settlement was slightly below neighboring power markets with market operators OTE, OKTE and HUPX settling Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian day-ahead baseload power, respectively, at EUR 25.51, while OPCOM cleared its Romanian equivalent at EUR 24.78 per MWh, Platts reported. In comparison, the recently launched Croatian power exchange CROPEX settled baseload power for next-day delivery in Croatia at EUR 29.21 per MWh, according to exchange data.

The bourse, known as SEEPEX, is part of a regional power trading solution for the region. “The smooth launch of the Serbian Day-Ahead market is a cherry on the top of the liberalized power market in Serbia. At the same time, this is an important signal for the electricity market in South Eastern Europe as SEEPEX is the first organized market place in the region that provides a high level standard both in terms of trading and clearing infrastructures”, says Miloš Mladenović, its managing director.

SEEPEX is a joint venture of the Serbian transmission system operator Elektromreža Srbije (EMS) and the European Power Exchange EPEX Spot. Operations rely on the trading system ETS, used by EPEX Spot for operating its own markets in Central-Western Europe. SEEPEX organizes markets that are optional, anonymous and accessible to all companies satisfying admission requirements, the press release said. Clearing and settlement is performed by European Commodity Clearing (ECC). This also allows for an efficient and fast adherence to existing market coupling initiatives such as the 4M Market Coupling or the Multi-Regional Coupling, already covering 85% of European electricity consumption, the press release said.

EMS is a public company fully owned by the state, established under Serbian law in 2005. EPEX Spot SE and its affiliates operate organised short-term electricity markets for Germany, France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg; markets representing 50% of European electricity consumption, the statement adds. EPEX Spot is a European company (Societas Europaea) in corporate structure and staff, based in Paris with offices or affiliates in Amsterdam, Bern, Brussels, Leipzig, London and Vienna. More than 280 companies have traded 566 TWh of electricity on EPEX Spot and its affiliates in 2015. EPEX Spot is member of EEX Group, part of Deutsche Börse.

With the fully-fledged trading and clearing solutions distilled from best practice in Central Western European power markets, Serbia will be at the forefront of the region providing the SEEPEX as an efficient role model for all future cooperation between transmission system operators and power exchanges, in the words of Nikola Petrović, EMS general manager, and Jean-François Conil-Lacoste, chairman of the Management Board of EPEX Spot.

Interenergo d. o. o., Ezpada s. r. o., Electric Power Industry of Serbia (JP Elektroprivreda Srbije), EFT AG, and GEN-I d. o. o., signed the agreements to become members of the market.