European Market Coupling Company - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

European Market Coupling Company, EMCC or emcc, is a provider of congestion management services for cross-border electrical interconnectors. This is done by means of market coupling, in particular tight volume coupling.

EMCC is a joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

of the following transmission system operator

Transmission system operator

File:Electricity grid simple- North America.svg|thumb|380px|right|Simplified diagram of AC electricity distribution from generation stations to consumersrect 2 243 235 438 Power stationrect 276 317 412 556 Transformer...

s (TSOs) and electricity exchanges (PXs) in North-Western Europe: Energinet.dk

Energinet.dk

Energinet.dk is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. It is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate and Energy...

, TenneT TSO GmbH, 50Hertz Transmission GmbH

50Hertz Transmission GmbH

50Hertz Transmission GmbH is one of the four Transmission system operators for electricity in East Germany. It is a member of European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity ....

, European Energy Exchange

European Energy eXchange

European Energy Exchange AG, Germany's energy exchange, is the leading energy exchange in Central Europe.-Overview:The European Energy Exchange is located in Leipzig. Preceding companies were LPX Leipzig Power Exchange, located in Leipzig and European Energy Exchange, located in Frankfurt...

AG, Nord Pool Spot AS. It was established in Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, in August 2008.

Purpose and functioning

The purpose of EMCC is to promote an efficient electricity market

Electricity market

In economic terms, electricity is a commodity capable of being bought, sold and traded. An electricity market is a system for effecting purchases, through bids to buy; sales, through offers to sell; and short-term trades, generally in the form of financial or obligation swaps. Bids and offers use...

between regions by using market coupling and to promote the integration of a Europe-wide wholesale electricity market.

EMCC calculates optimal electricity flows, based on available transmission capacities (ATC) from the TSOs and anonymous order books (OBK) from the exchanges. Afterwards, EMCC places market coupling bids at the PXs in order to achieve a power flow from the low-price area into the high-price area. Subsequently, EMCC creates schedules and carries out the financial settlement with the PXs. EMCC's calculation algorithm is based on the economic welfare

Welfare economics

Welfare economics is a branch of economics that uses microeconomic techniques to evaluate economic well-being, especially relative to competitive general equilibrium within an economy as to economic efficiency and the resulting income distribution associated with it...

criterion.

Development

Market coupling on two interconnectors between Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

and Germany first started in 2008 and was stopped after ten days as it became clear that the algorithms used by EMCC and the PXs were not perfectly aligned.

Danish-German market coupling was relaunched successfully in November 2009 with a revised convex optimiser as algorithm. Baltic Cable

Baltic Cable

The Baltic Cable is a HVDC power line running beneath the Baltic Sea that interconnects the electric power grids of Germany and Sweden.The Baltic Cable uses a transmission voltage of 450 kV – the highest operating voltage for energy transmission in Germany...

between Sweden and Germany was integrated in May 2010.

In January 2010, EMCC was asked by TSOs and PXs in the Central Western European (CWE) and Nordic region to develop a system to integrate CWE price coupling and Nordic market splitting. The new scheme is called Interim Tight Volume Coupling (ITVC). It is based on the existing Nordic-German tight volume coupling and is a further enhancement.

On 9 November 2010, day-ahead market coupling for the extended region was launched. This region covers Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Luxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...

, Germany

Germany

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, the Nordic region and Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

. It represents the world's largest single power market of 1,816 TWh

TWH

TWH or twh could refer to:*Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse* Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada* TWH Bus & Coach, a bus company in Romford, England* Terrawatt-hour, measure of electrical energy, 1012 watt-hours...

, about 60% of European power consumption. The second step adding the NorNed

NorNed

NorNed is a long HVDC submarine power cable between Feda in Norway and the seaport of Eemshaven in the Netherlands, which interconnects both countries' electricity grids. It is the longest submarine power cable in the world. Budgeted at €550 million, and completed at a cost of €600m, the...

cable between Norway and the Netherlands started on 12 January 2011.

Purpose and functioning

Development

See also