The nominated electricity market operators (NEMOs) and transmission system operators (TSOs) involved in the European Single Intraday Coupling (SIDC – formerly XBID) announced that 15-minute intraday products will be available for cross-border trading on the Romanian-Bulgarian border as of 1 October 2022 (delivery day).
The completion of this milestone towards the better market integration of renewables comes 3 years after Bulgaria and Romania joined SIDC as part of the 2nd wave of integration and the expansion of 15-minute intraday products to Romania in February 2021.
The introduction of smaller granularity cross- border products for continuous trading on this border will provide Bulgarian market participants with access to the existing liquidity of 15-minute products allowing them to better adjust their commercial positions on this market. Thus, it will be possible for a 15- minute product order to be matched with another order for a 15- minute product in the already coupled intraday markets of Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Romania, and Slovenia.
SIDC currently couples the continuous intraday markets of 23 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.
The SIDC solution is based on a common IT system with one Shared Order Book, a Capacity Management Module and a Shipping Module. It allows for orders entered by market participants for continuous matching in one bidding zone to be matched by orders similarly submitted by market participants in any other bidding zone within the project’s reach as long as transmission capacity is available. The intraday solution supports both explicit allocation (where approved by the respective national regulatory authorities) and implicit continuous trading. It is in line with the EU Target model for an integrated intraday market.
European-wide intraday coupling is a key component for completing the European internal energy market. With the rising share of intermittent generation in the European generation mix, connecting intraday markets through cross-border trading is an increasingly important tool for market parties to keep positions balanced. The purpose of the SIDC initiative is to increase the overall efficiency of intraday trading.
