Spot market
The spot market for electricity is operated by EPEX SPOT, a joint venture owned by German EEX AG and French Powernext SAS (its 100% subsidiary). Each day of the year, EPEX SPOT conducts day-ahead auctions for three market areas: Germany/Austria, France, and Switzerland. Physical delivery of power occurs the following day.
EPEX SPOT also offers an intraday market for Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, and the United Kingdom. The market, which operates continuously without exceptions, can be utilized to meet short-term electricity needs or to trade excess capacity. Participants can purchase electricity up to 45 minutes before each hour for that specific hour. Trading for electricity on the following day can start from 15:00.
The ability to trade all day on the natural gas spot market was introduced in 2011.[3] On the spot market, companies can trade natural gas on a continuous basis for the current day (within a day), one day, and two days in advance, as well as for the following weekend. Since the launch of 24/7 trading, EEX has also offered seamless trading with a minimum lot size of 1 MW (in addition to 10 MW contracts). Short-term gas quantities can be traded on the exchange for delivery in the market areas GASPOOL, NetConnect Germany (NCG), and the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF).
EEX also offers a spot market for EU allowances. Since 2005, EEX has operated both spot and derivatives markets in emission allowances. [4] EEX has offered trading of emission allowances on the basis of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) since 2005. EEX currently runs a secondary market for continuous trading on a spot and derivatives basis for EU ETS allowances (EUA, EUAA) and Kyoto credits (CER, ERU). [5][6]
As of March 26, 2008, it is possible to trade CER futures on the EEX (Certified Emission Reductions) global emission credits in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol. On April 14, 2008, EEX and Eurex launched trading of options on EUA Futures. Since January 2010, EEX AG has run the auctioning of the emission allowances issued by the Federal Ministry of the Environment. All trading participants admitted to trading in emission allowances on EEX are able to take part in the auction without any further preconditions regarding licensing. From the very beginning, this also included all trading participants taking part in the existing Eurex cooperation on the derivatives market. In addition, EEX also carries out the EUA auctions for other countries (Poland, Hungary).
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) has won the tendering procedure for the transitory auctioning platform for the EUA auctioned off by Germany for the third emissions trading period in February 2012, and it was chosen as a cooperation exchange for the NER30 program of the European Investment Bank (EIB). As of April 30, 2012, emission allowances for the aviation industry (EU Aviation Allowances, or EUAA) will also be offered for trading. Furthermore, Futures on Emission Reduction Units (ERU) will be launched at the end of April. In March, EEX extended the futures on Certified Emission Reductions (CER) for all maturities of the third trading period.
