OPCOM

Updated planning of the DE-AT-PL-4M MC (Interim Coupling) Project

Vienna, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Bratislava
10th May 2021

The Nominated Electricity Market Operators (NEMOs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) from Austria, Germany, Poland and the 4M Market Coupling (4M MC) countries, namely the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, hereby inform stakeholders about the slight update of the project planning.

Project parties have successfully completed the first phase of joint regional testing (Full Integration Testing - FIT) in the end of February 2021. The following phase of the testing (Simulation Integration Testing – SIT) focusing on the testing of regional operational procedures has started on 22nd March 2021. The regional SIT tests were originally planned to be finalized until 4th May 2021. Project parties have decided to prolong this regional testing phase with one week in order to enable additional testing to ensure robustness and reliability of delivered solution. The updated planning was also coordinated with the relevant National Regulatory Authorities and with the SDAC parties.

As a result of this slight update in the planning, the regional tests are now expected to be completed until 12th May 2021, which will be followed by end-to-end procedural tests at a wider European level, together with all parties of the SDAC. The Member Tests with the participation of market participants is now envisaged to be carried out between 31st May 2021 and 7th June 2021. Market participants shall be informed about the details of the Member Tests in a separate communication.

The go-live of the project is now planned for 17th June 2021 (first trading day, with delivery day on 18th June 2021), subject to confirmation of technical and legal readiness by all parties.

The project parties remain fully committed to deliver the Interim Coupling, marking a milestone for the completion of the European Single Day-Ahead Coupling (SDAC).

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The DE-AT-PL-4M MC Project, also referred to as Interim Coupling aims to connect the borders of 4M MC with the Multi-Regional Coupling (MRC) by introducing Net Transmission Capacity based (NTC-based) implicit capacity allocation on six borders (PL-DE, PL-CZ, PL- SK, CZ-DE, CZ-AT, HU-AT). This will mark the start of the so called “enduring phase” of SDAC, during which there will be one European Single Day-Ahead Coupling only, where MRC and 4M MC are coupled.

PRESS RELEASE 10.05.2021