20 years of intraday trading in Finland – Fingrid as a forerunner in the electricity market
Continuous intraday trading started between Finland and Sweden twenty years ago with the introduction of the ELBAS product. At the same time, 1st of March in 1999, Fingrid Oyj, the Finnish transmission system operator, removed the tariffs for cross-border trade on its Nordic borders.
The intraday market that was launced between Finland and Sweden in 1999 was the world’s first market for continuous cross-border trading. Later the market expanded regionally, and it was used as an example to the European target model for electricity market.
XBID (Cross-Border Intraday Market) was launched in June 2018 as part of the implementation of the European target model for intraday. Currently there are 14 counties in the common European intraday market: Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, France, Sweden, Germany, Finland, Denmark and Estonia. The aim is that more countries will join XBID and it will be possible to trade within the whole Europe in the future.
Intraday trading supports the power system
Intraday trading refers to electricity trading close to the delivery of the product. Intraday trading allows market players to balance their electricity consumption and production closer to real-time and support the balancing of the power system. Intraday trading is continuous for each hour around the clock. Currently it is possible to trade in Finland and between Finland and Estonia until 30 minutes before the start of the delivery hour. On the Finnish-Swedish border, as well as elsewhere in the Nordic countries, trading closes 60 minutes before the start of each delivery hour.
The importance of the intraday market will increase in the future together with the increased amount of intermittent generation (e.g. wind and solar generation). Fingrid aims to promote market-based solutions and possibilities to trade close to real time.
More information:
Heini Ruohosenmaa, Special Adviser
+358 (0)30 395 4187