The First Week of I-SEM: Day One

  It was always a brave move to start a market on the same day as a new quarter, on the first day of industry winter, and on a Monday. With this in mind, teams of traders, commercial staff and IT teams across the country traipsed into the office yesterday with some trepidation… would it function as intended? Well, first of all, it works. All of the paraphernalia that SEMO and SEMOpx promised is there. A day-ahead auction has cleared, units have been dispatched and imbalance prices have been produced. And overall things look moderate and under control: for the first day the market cleared at a baseload value of €82.24/MWh, which reflects the shortage of plant on the system and the low wind conditions. In this blog series we will look at the emerging trends in the market. This is the very definition of work in progress, and the first draft of history. To be honest we hope that it is boring and unremarkable: that means that the market is functioning the way it is designed. So… day one… is there anything we can tell at this early stage? Well firstly it is worth remarking that the baseload figure mentioned above hides quite a diversity of “shape”. Day ahead prices ranged between €60.5/MWh and €127.40/MWh, whilst already prices in some 5-minute imbalance pricing periods have dipped as low as -€1,000/MWh, and as high as €381.68/MWh Watch this space as the story unfolds…