Amsterdam / Brussels / Leipzig / London / Paris, 4 April 2016. The clearing for the power spot markets in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium has successfully been migrated from APX to European Commodity Clearing (ECC) on 31 March 2016. Thus all power spot markets operated by EPEX SPOT and its affiliates covering Central Western Europe (CWE) and the UK now benefit from one central clearing.
The migration follows the announcement of the integration of APX and Belpex into the European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT in April 2015 and paves the way to harmonise power spot markets in CWE and the UK. All efforts will now focus on the migration of the trading systems in the Netherlands and Belgium towards ETS for Day-Ahead and M7 for Intraday markets, scheduled to take place at the end of 2016.
While clearing historically has been carried out by APX itself for its markets, ECC has been the clearing house of EPEX SPOT since its inception. Clearing usually refers to the financial and physical settlement of trading transactions concluded or registered for clearing on EPEX SPOT: in its capacity as central counterparty, the clearing house then steps between buyer and seller, assuming the counterparty financial risk for each trading participant and conducting payment, delivery and settlement of all transactions.
Currently, ECC assumes clearing services for power spot markets in Germany/Austria, France, Switzerland, Hungary and Serbia. In addition to that, power futures for Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Romania, Switzerland, the UK as well as the Nordic market tradable at EEX are also cleared by ECC. Clearing of all power spot and derivatives products of EEX Group in one common clearing house provides significant margin savings to the customers active in these markets.
The European Power Exchange EPEX SPOT SE and its affiliates operate physical short-term electricity markets in Central Western Europe and the United Kingdom. The creation of a pan-European power market is what defines EPEX SPOT’s mission. In 2015, its 280 members traded 566 TWh – a third of the domestic consumption in these eight countries. 49% of its equity is owned by HGRT, a holding of transmission system operators. EPEX SPOT is part of EEX Group. For more information, please visit www.epexspot.com.
European Commodity Clearing (ECC) is the central clearing house for energy and related products in Europe. In its capacity as the central counterparty ECC assumes clearing as well as physical and financial settlement of transactions concluded on CEGH Gas Exchange of the Vienna Stock Exchange, EEX, EPEX SPOT, HUPX, Gaspoint Nordic, NOREXECO, Powernext, Power Exchange Central Europe and SEEPEX, or registered for clearing on these exchanges. www.ecc.de