APX-ENDEX is heavily involved together with other PXs and TSOs in the project to implement market coupling in Central Western Europe (CWE MC). CWE MC will see market coupling being broadened to Luxembourg and Germany, in addition to the three countries already involved in the Trilateral Market Coupling.

In the presence of the European Commission, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between governments, regulators, power exchanges, TSOs and the electricity associations of Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and France was signed in Luxembourg in June 2007. The MoU agreed on the implementation of market coupling between the involved electricity markets. APX-ENDEX strongly welcomes this development. It is the intention to have this Central Western European Market up and running in September 2010, replacing the Trilateral Market Coupling.

The involved parties have also agreed on coherence between the Central Western European Region and the initiatives for market coupling to the Nordic region (NorNed cable and the EMCC coupling of Germany and Denmark), aiming at compatible solutions, as stated in the Annex of the signed MoU on the Central Western European region. Given this initiative, market coupling between the very liquid Norwegian and Dutch day-ahead markets is still a major objective, yielding great benefits for economic optimisation and for the power market in Central Western Europe. APX-ENDEX continues to work on delivering the introduction of market coupling for NorNed as soon as possible.

• Please click here to see the Q&A from the Forum of 8 June 2010

• Reply letter to PLEF 20 July 2010

The CWE project parties have selected COSMOS as the algorithm to calculate daily market coupling results. COSMOS is a branch-and-bound algorithm designed, in collaboration with N-SIDE, to solve the problem of coupling spot markets including block orders. It treats all technical and product requirements set by the CWE project, including step and interpolated orders, flow-based network under PTDF representation, ATC links and DC cables (possible with ramping, tariffs and losses), profiles block orders, flexible blocks orders and linked block orders.

COSMOS outputs net export positions and prices on each market and each hour, the set of executed orders, and the congestion prices on each tight network element. These outputs satisfy all requirements of a feasible solution, including congestion price properties and the absence of Paradoxically Accepted Blocks.

The document below only describes the features that will be used once CWE Market Coupling is launched, though COSMOS already integrates many additional features such as those to be expected in a context of product and geographic extensions.

• COSMOS description - CWE Market Coupling algorithm

• Presentation CWE MC Go-Live Forum in Düsseldorf 8 June 2010

• Click here for the Results of the CWE Questionnaire

• Presentation CWE Forum 9 October 2009 in Brussels

In November 2008, the partners of the CWE Market Coupling project have provided the addendum to the Implementation Study addressed to the PentaLateral Energy Forum. This document completes the description of the design of the market coupling solution that was proposed in the Implementation Study, published on 1 October 2008.

This addendum contains the:

• Distribution of the auction incomes in ATC based Market Coupling
• Methodology of a coordinated ATC calculation
• Results of the latest validation study
• Bottom-up planning and budget

The first goal is the launch of an ATC-based market coupling for the CWE region, as soon as possible, currently planned for September 2010.  Flow based Market Coupling remains the ultimate goal. After a time of parallel running of simulations in flow-based coupling there is going to be a consultation before the switch to a flow-based coupling. Please follow links below to download the addendum to the Implementation Study and its annex, as well as the presentation of the addendum proposed to the Pentalateral Energy Forum on 26 November 2008.

• CWE MC Addendum PLEF
• Presentation PLEF

In early August 2008, the partners of the CWE Market Coupling project provided an Implementation Study to the PentaLateral Energy Forum.

This reference document describes the design of the market coupling solution that is proposed to be implemented. It is a major milestone for the project.

An addendum to the implementation study will be provided by the end of November concerning specific aspects (e.g. the Shipping Agent description, the sharing of congestion revenue, the description of ATC, a new data bottom-up budget/planning).

Please follow links below to download the Implementation study, as well as its appendices:

• Implementation Study
• Annex 1 - List of Questions
• Annex 2 - Consultation Results
• Annex 3.1 - Validators Report
• Annex 3.2 - Validators Report
• Annex 3.3 - Validators Report
• Annex 4 - Fall Back Options
• Annex 5 - Algorithm Requirements

In May 2008, the partners of the CWE MC project organised technical meetings and a web consultation, in the framework of the design phase of the project. The aim of the consultation is to collect input from market parties on price boundaries, daily schedules and market timings, fallbacks, flow based model and data publication. The report presents the aggregated results of the 40 participants who participated in the web consultation. Please follow the link below to download the survey analysis.

CWE MC technical workshop participants survey results