The Day-Ahead Market (DAM) is a component of the wholesale electricity market that allows firm electricity trading with delivery on the very next day after the trading day.
As of 17th June 2021, Romanian Day Ahead Market switched to operating in a price coupling mechanism at European level with implementing the DE-AT-PL-4M MC project, project known as Interim Coupling as well. By this the single European market coupling through enduring solution was ensured. The process of Romanian borders integration within the European market coupling through implicit auction continued with integration of Romania-Bulgaria border when Romania-Bulgaria cooperation project successfully went-live on 27th October 2021.
As of 8th June 2022, the Romanian DAM moved forward to the next step for reaching the European target of DAM market coupling through CORE FB MC project implementation, known as flow based market coupling.
The DAM rules establish a centralized market framework for buying and selling of electricity by market participants, necessary:
- To facilitate the establishing of a wholesale electricity markets at national and regional level within framework of competition, transparency and non-discrimination;
- To establish reference prices for other wholesale transactions;
- To optimize usage of interconnected network by flow based market coupling mechanism.
DAM provides market participants a functional tool to achieve balance between portfolio of bilateral contracts, consumption forecast and availability of generation units at hourly level for the delivery day. The surplus or deficit of electricity can be balanced through electricity selling or purchasing on DAM.
Participation on DAM is voluntary and is available to all operators within the meaning of Article 2 of Regulation (EU) 943/2019 which enter this market and comply with the Participation Agreement relating to this trading method, as well as the applicable regulations. One of the mandatory conditions that the applicant must meet in order to register at the DAM is to prove that he has concluded with the TSO (Transmission System Operator) the Balancing Responsibility Agreement or that he has transferred the balancing responsibility to another Balancing Responsible Party.
Firm electricity trades are concluded every day for each hourly interval within the next delivery day based on offers submitted by DAM participants. Offers can be submitted in the trading system according to the trading schedule pre-established in CET and only if the price scale is available, respectively the exchange rate is established by the Romanian National Bank (RNB) for relevant trading day.
The exchange rate is established every banking weekday. In case the day before the trading day is nonworking day, respectively is Saturday, Sunday, public holiday, or other special day when RNB does not establish the exchange rate, the exchange rate applicable for the trading day is that established during the latest banking day before the relevant trading day and is published on the day of establishment. The DAM operator uploads the exchange rate in the trading system in the day of its establishment for all delivery day for it is applicable. Attached is the calendar for 2024 and 2025 with delivery days for which the exchange rate is set in advance.
Features of the offers for DAM:
- Buying/selling electricity offers are made on each DAM participant’s portfolio basis;
- One offer is defined by minimum one quantity-price pair. Quantity is expressed in MWh with one decimal and price is expressed in RON with two decimals;
- Offers are made in CET, respectively the first hourly interval spans between 0:00h and 1:00h CET;
- Offers are made for national bidding zone considering functioning in coupling mode or in decoupling mode as last resort solution, as the case;
- Offers could be:
- Offers for single hourly intervals, identified as hourly offers;
- Offers for more consecutive hourly intervals, interlinked, identified as block offers.
The DAM trading system validate/invalidate offers submitted by the participants according to criteria provided in the “Operational procedure regarding functioning of the Day-Ahead electricity Market”.
In normal situation of functioning in coupling mode, trades on DAM are concluding by matching buy and sell offers through auction mechanism established according to price coupling of regions mechanism (PCR mechanism), after performance of offering, validation, and aggregation of offers steps, market coupling running process and portfolio allocation of the coupling results according to participants offers.
Based on trades’ confirmation for one delivery day, OPCOM S.A. establishes physical notifications related to concluded trades, with granularity of 15 minutes, and send them to Transmission System Operator (TSO) and make them available to BRPs that assumes balancing responsibility for DAM participants.
The DAM trading schedule during a normal day is (in CET):
| 6:00 | Opening the trading system |
| 10:30 | Available Transmission Capacity (ATC) publishing |
| 12:00 | Gate Closure Time |
| 12:57 | Trade confirmation publishing |
| 13:27 | Physical notification creation |
| 19:00 | Closing the trading system |
In case of deviation from normal regime for market coupling, relevant DAM operational procedures are applied.
OPCOM agreed with EEX and PXE the right to use ROPEX_DAM indices for registration of trades for derivative financial contracts Romanian Power base Future, respectively for trading the Commodity futures with financial settlement for hedging against DAM price volatility risk.