KEY ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR - April 2007

General issues

• A Stakeholder meeting in June 2006 generally supported the work and more specifically the draft priorities.
• The Northern REM has agreed that the “Focus will be on improving the whole sale market interface between the Nordic countries on one side and Germany and Poland (“Continental Europe”) on the other side. However, other interfaces as those stemming from the coming EstLink and the NorNed interconnectors must be taken into account as well”.
• The Northern REM has agreed on an “Indicative Road Map” for the period until 2010, which will serve as a basis for its work.

Priority I

Optimizing use of interconnectors (capacity
allocation and congestion
management)

• TSOs E.ON Netz, Vattenfall Europe Transmission, Energinet.dk and exchanges European Energy Exchange and Nord Pool Spot have signed a MoU on work to establish day ahead market coupling on Danish-German interconnectors in 2007. This work is the basis of the Northern REM work on these interconnectors. The work has entered from the conceptual phase into the implementation phase including a joint auction office in Hamburg. Day ahead market coupling to come into effect 4th quarter 2007.
• A survey among market participants (relevant to DE-DK interconnectors) has been undertaken on their preferences for explicit auctions (before day-ahead market coupling).
• The work initiated on the “merchant” interconnectors between and until now has focussed on legal aspects as well as the de facto operation of the interconnectors, as well as on the visions of owners on future operation of these interconnectors.

Priority II

Transparency and information to market actors

• A status on wholesale market transparency in the participating countries has been carried out.
• The focus since then has been on deciding what information should be published across the region – when and how. The ERGEG Guidelines are the point of departure.

•  A draft proposal on transparency has been circulated for comments among stakeholders – and has also been sent to the regions Central East and Central West.  Comments have been received and currently being analysed. 

Other Priorities 

• Initiation of the work on the medium term priority “Joint intra-day and balancing markets” has been prepared in RCC, but the work will not be actively started until the work on day ahead market coupling is a bit more advanced.
• The work on other medium term priorities on “Cooperation on investments in new interconnectors”  and “Cooperation on dealing with major shares of wind energy in the systems” is planned to be initiated beginning of 2008.