All about Energy Market

Due to the high electricity prices, windfall tax laws have been enacted in all EU member states that skim off surplus revenues from the sale of electricity. As a rule, only electricity producers are affected by this regulation (with the exception of Poland). The windfall tax laws stipulate that electricity producers may keep part of the market revenues generated as "legally permitted revenue". Any revenue more than this (surplus revenues) must be surrendered. Many member states have decided to deduct not 100 % but 90 % of the surplus revenues in order to leave plant operators an economic incentive.

Visitors entering the trading floor of Next Kraftwerke perceive much more monitors than people. At least four, sometimes eight monitors are grouped around each workplace. Traders watch the activities on the screens with full concentration: energy market prices, load and generation profiles, market information, weather reports, and plant schedules. The job is to keep an eye on, prioritize and evaluate a wide range of information. The acquired knowledge largely determines the traders' activities on the European power exchanges.

Day-ahead trading of electricity refers to the buying and selling of electricity on the day before the actual production and delivery. Day-ahead trading either takes place on the spot market of the respective power exchange (often called day ahead market or day ahead auction) or through bilateral contracts between two parties - usually power trading companies - outside of the power exchange in over the counter (OTC) deals.

For several months, the German power exchange prices have been moving in only one direction: straight up. In an interview with our electricity trader Jan Egidi, we take a closer look at this development and talk about the implications of this trend for the German renewables industry.

Hendrik Sämisch and Jochen Schwill, founders and CEOs of Next Kraftwerke, on the partnership with Shell Renewables & Energy Solutions

We need more flexibility in the electricity grid, in the electricity market, in the entire electricity system. One can hear these demands repeatedly in connection with the energy transition. This is because an increase in the share of wind and solar in the electricity mix, which generate electricity in a volatile manner and can only be controlled to a limited extent, poses new challenges for the electricity grid.

The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, also known as ETS or EU-ETS, is an instrument for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest possible economic cost. Adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU in 2003, it came into force on January 1, 2005. As of 2019, 31 European countries with around 11,000 emissions-intensive plants from electricity production and CO2-intensive industries participate in European emissions trading.

Anyone who wants to aggregate decentralized plants in a Virtual Power Plant is confronted with a whole range of questions during the planning phase: Which business cases are feasible in the regulatory context of my country – and which ones make economic sense in this market environment? How can I connect the technical units in my Virtual Power Plant and which solutions meet the technical requirements of the grid operator? We compiled the top 10 questions each aggregator-to-be need to find an answer for.

The COVID-19 pandemic shakes up the world – but the power grid in Europe remains stable. What ensures this stability and how do the electricity markets in Germany and Europe react to the situation?

For weeks now, Germany and its European neighbors have had a peak season for wind power. The winter storms Sabine (also known as Ciara or Elsa), Victoria (known as Dennis in UK) and Yulia brought new records – most recently the unprecedented peak value of 46.2 gigawatts (GW). Renewables accounted for 69 percent of net electricity production in the third week of February, with wind accounting for 55 percent. Never before has so much wind power been fed into the German power grid. Are these figures the result of extreme weather conditions, which simply brought us an extraordinary number of storms this winter, or is there a general trend here? And how does the German energy system actually cope with these record values?