Poland's largest energy bourse –PolPX – and Czech market operator OTE are in talks about joining their power markets, possibly later in 2011, the chief of the Polish bourse Grzegorz Onichimowski said on Tuesday (29 March).
Electricity trade on linked exchanges could potentially start using existing interconnectors to transfer about seven GWh of power a year, about 5% of Poland's annual consumption, Onichimowski said.
"We are talking to the Czech exchange about market coupling, which we think can be done this year," he said in a telephone interview.
"The infrastructure is in place and all that needs to be done is to reach an agreement between grid operators, exchanges and a slight change in regulations."
The discussions represent the latest move among Central European exchanges to couple their power markets in a region that offers a potentially lucrative, but currently fragmented, market.
The Czech and Slovak electricity markets merged in 2009 in a move that boosted liquidity and showed other Central and Eastern European countries that integration could work.
In February, the Czech and Slovak grid operators said they would look to combine their markets with Hungary as a step toward integrating the region with western electricity markets.
"Originally there was an idea to link all the exchanges in the region through market coupling, but recently there is a shift toward bilateral agreements," Onichimowski said. "The latter scenario is more likely at the moment."
The integration would mark the second for PolPX, which last year linked its power market with Scandinavia's Nordpool via a 600 MW cable to give Warsaw-based investors access to Europe's most liquid energy market and boost trade on the Polish bourse.
Most power contracts in Poland are traded bilaterally but day ahead volumes have risen on the PolPX exchange following an energy law that took effect last year requiring generators to sell a certain amount of production on regulated markets.
The European Union plans ultimately to bind together the power networks of all EU countries to boost distribution of renewable energy and help the region cope in the event of an energy crisis.
The first step toward that goal is combining different countries together in the same region before joining together neighbouring areas.