Serbia eyes last quarter of 2027 for power market coupling with EU – SEEPEX CEO

Serbia is targeting the last quarter of 2027 for coupling with the European Union’s single day-ahead market, Serbian power exchange SEEPEX’s Managing Director Miloš Mladenović said.

Miloš Mladenović was one of the speakers at the Energy Connectivity, Resilience and Security in Southeastern Europe panel at the 14th International Forum on Energy for Sustainable Development in Skopje.

He recalled that a few weeks ago, the European Commission finally published the governance for the verification process regarding the transposition of the Electricity Integration Package (EIP) for market coupling by the contracting parties of the Energy Community.

SEEPEX would try to reduce the required time

Also, he added, it would took up to six months starting from the new year to implement the Market Coupling Operator Integration Plan (MCO IP).

“I think that in the middle of next year, we can start with this famous 18 months, which is regular time to implement the single day-ahead coupling (SDAC),” Mladenović stressed.

He underlined that within the extended ADEX family, with EPEX Spot and the transmission system operators (TSOs), which are shareholders, they would try to reduce the required time at the market coupling steering committee.

“Our common goal now is to try to catch this time slot, the last quarter of 2027,” he stated.

Mladenović noted that it is usual to use the first quarter of a year for the single day-ahead coupling (SDAC), and the last quarter for single intraday coupling (SIDC).

SEEPEX plans to proceed with intraday coupling with Hungary

“I hope that we would have understanding within the nominated electricity market operators (NEMOs) and the TSOs community to catch this thing and to have this last quarter of 2027 as a time slot for SDAC coupling,” he explained.

After that, SEEPEX plans, in his words, to proceed with intraday coupling with Hungary.

He pointed out that a few days ago, SEEPEX received positive feedback from the Italian Border Working Table (IBWT) regarding its initiative to couple Serbia with Bulgaria.

Now the request will be provided to national regulators for a confirmation letter, he added.

“I hope that for all other neighboring contracting parties of the Energy Community, the Serbia-Hungary coupling could be a vehicle to speed up the process,” Mladenović asserted.

European Commission to allow acceleration of market coupling

Mladenović also highlighted the experience Serbia had with the legal and regulatory side of the coupling process. “I will put business and technical parts aside, because I’m sure that my colleagues, both the power exchanges and the TSOs, are ready to implement all that is needed for the coupling,” he added.

The legal and regulatory process is, in his words, very demanding, because there are 10 grid codes to be transposed to align all the rules with the country’s market rules, with the transmission codes and with the legal framework.

He expressed doubt that the neighboring countries could achieve such speed.

“It could be some joint request to the European Commission to try to make coupling processes parallel. We insisted on this from the beginning. I hope that our colleagues from the region will get the green light to implement the project even before the legal and regulatory framework are in place,” Mladenović stressed.

He said he believes that the Serbia-Hungary coupling and the future Serbia-Bulgaria coupling could be a shiny start, leading soon to the entire region’s coupling with the EU internal market.