Blog

WIND DERIVATIVES – A BET OR A HEDGE?
Recently EEX has launched wind power futures for Germany and Austria to help wind power producers or asset owners manage volume risks and wind induced market price risks. The purpose of this post is to share some thoughts on the applicability of this and similar...

Achieving a Reliable Front Office Reporting in ETRM systems: Typical Pitfalls
Are you the most trusting person on Earth? If that is the case, you obviously, haven`t dealt with front office reporting solutions, nor have you ever opened a bag of chips.
As the saying goes „Trust is the hardest thing to find and the easiest thing to lose”. When it comes to front office reporting and traders it is even more fragile than a gold fish`s memory. A couple of wrong position results may lead traders to feel like they are using a gambling tool instead of a reporting tool.

RES support tenders – increasing competition or emergency brake?
Renewable energy sources (RES) have played a key role in European policies over the latest decades and will most probably continue to do so in future. To reach their targets for electricity consumed from RES, EU countries have applied a number of support schemes, which often have been revised (in many cases more than once) for one or another reason. As a professional, who has experienced the renewables tariff roller coaster in first person, any announcement of changes is already bad news. Auctions and/or tenders, increasingly gaining popularity within the EU as instruments to increase competition among different renewable technologies, are no exception. A person like me, who has developed a healthy pessimism against frequent subsidy changes caused by the evolution of the support schemes, may ask the following question: Is the urgency to curb the rapid RES development and the associated budget deficits the primary motivation behind the reforms or could it be the next logical step in the evolution of renewable energy support?

Navigating the EU State Aid rules, when implementing a capacity mechanism
More often than not understanding what to expect from an upcoming EU regulation can be a challenge. I have been through a good number of its energy trading regulations and still at times, I am left wondering, how implementing the next one will unfold. And yes, my expectations often prove wrong. Yet, I keep trying to understand and see the logic of it all. So, when I’ve read that the EU finally approved France’s new capacity support scheme after few changes ensuring its compliance with the EU State Aid regulation, I’ve decided that a quick overview may help us all understand, what are the key rules to be upheld.