Last Wednesday, the electricity exchanges faced challenges that led to delays in announcing Thursday’s hourly prices in Finland. This has raised concerns about the ongoing issues in the electricity trade and whether they are being taken seriously enough. One of the exchanges, Nordpool, has been criticized for its lack of efficiency and safety, with disruptions causing chaos.
Nordpool, which operates in multiple European countries, promotes itself as simple, effective, and safe. However, recent events have shown that its operation is anything but efficient and safe. On Wednesday, Epex exchange encountered difficulties in delivering offer information to the next day’s spot price calculation system. This led to complications in calculating hourly prices and resulted in Nordpool having to calculate European electricity prices without complete information.
The situation on Wednesday resulted in discrepancies in prices observed on Germany’s electricity market due to separate calculations by Nordpool and Epex. This highlights the need for a thorough review of processes to prevent such incidents from occurring again in the future. The incident is not an isolated problem; there have been errors and bid mistakes that have impacted the market over the past year. It is crucial to address these issues seriously since disruptions in the electricity market can have serious consequences on society as a whole. Electrical trading is not just any other form of trading; it is vital to ensure the stability and reliability of this fundamental commodity that affects daily lives of many individuals and businesses.