'Intraday cross-zonal gate closure Time' (IDCZGCT) is the point in time where cross-zonal capacity allocation is no longer permitted for a given market time unit (Article 2(39) of the Regulation establishing a Guideline on Capacity Allocation and Congestion Management - CACM (Regulation on market coupling).
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ACER adopts a decision on intraday cross-zonal gate opening and closure time, 7 May 2018
The Agency decided that the intraday cross-zonal market shall open at 15:00 market time day-ahead and shall close 60 minutes (30 minutes for Estonia-Finland border) before the start of the relevant market time unit on the bidding zone border.
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Article 59 of the CACM Regulation stipulates that one intraday cross-zonal gate closure time shall be established for each market time unit for a given bidding zone border.
The said provision also rules that the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time must be at most one hour before the start of the relevant market time unit and must take into account the relevant balancing processes in relation to operational security.
In the All TSOs' proposal of 18 April 2016 for intraday cross-zonal gate opening and gate closure times (Draft for consultation, Article 6, p. 6) the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time was proposed to be 60 minutes before the start of the relevant intraday market time unit.
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See also:
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The final detemination in this regard was made in the Decision of Agency of Cooperation of Energy Regulation No 04/2018 of 24 April 2018 on all Transmission System Operators’ Proposal for Intraday Cross-Zonal Gate Opening and Intraday Cross-Zonal Gate Closure Times.
In the said Decision the Agency decided that the intraday cross-zonal market for all bidding zone borders shall close 60 minutes (30 minutes for Estonia-Finland border) before the start of the relevant market time unit on the bidding zone border.
As ACER explains, the IDCZGCT proposed by the TSOs were an attempt to find a balance between two conflicting objectives:
1. to maximise market participants’ opportunities for adjusting their balances by trading in the intraday market timeframe as close as possible to real time, and
2. to provide TSOs and market participants with sufficient time for their scheduling and balancing processes in relation to network and operational security.
In the ACER’s view, the balance between these two objectives proposed by TSOs is based on a rather conservative estimate of the time needed by TSOs and market participants for their scheduling and balancing processes in relation to network and operational security.
In this respect, the ACER said that the Agency is unable to assess the possibility and the effort required by TSOs further to reduce these timings.
Nevertheless, these timings are also affected by the implementation of Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2195 (Electricity Balancing Regulation).
For this reason, ACER found the conservative approach proposed by TSOs as justified at this stage.
Nevertheless, once the above uncertainties are resolved and sufficient experience is gained with the balancing processes in the context of the integrated electricity balancing market, in the ACER’s opinion TSOs should further minimise the time needed for scheduling and balancing operations and thus further maximise market participants’ opportunities for adjusting their balances by trading in the intraday market timeframe as close as possible to real time.
Intraday Cross-Zonal Gate Opening Time (IDCZGOT) is defined in relation to the market time unit on a bidding zone the border.
"Market time unit" means the period for which the market price is established or the shortest possible common time period for the two bidding zones, if their market time units are different (Article 2(19) of the Regulation 543/2013 of 14 June 2013 on submission and publication of data in electricity markets).
ACER observes, this definition implies the comparison of two market time units within the bidding zones on either side of the border and the definition of the market time unit on the border between them as the longer of the two, since such unit is considered as the ‘shortest possible’ unit of this border.
For example, in case two bidding zones had market time units equal to 15’ and 30’, respectively, the shortest possible market time unit on their common border would be 30’.
This is because the bidding zone with a market time unit of 30’ could not accommodate 15’ products if these products were to be traded across the border, whereas the bidding zone with a market time unit of 15’ could also accommodate 30’ products if the latter were to be traded across the border.
The market time unit within a bidding zone is understood to be equal to the imbalance settlement period as defined in Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/2195.
ACER also took into account the concerns of the TSOs that the clarification of Article 2(19) of the Regulation 543/2013 implies a significant change to the existing practices, since currently all bidding zone borders specify IDCZGOT in relation to the market time unit in the day-ahead timeframe (i.e. one hour) instead of the market time unit unit in the intraday timeframe (which can be 60’, 30’ or 15’).
Therefore, until 1 January 2021 the IDCZGCT as defined above may be applied in relation to the relevant delivery hour rather than in relation to the relevant intraday market time unit on the bidding zone border.
The reason for this transition period is explained in recital 17 of the said ACER’s Decision, which reads as follows:
“The Terms and conditions for IDCGOT define an IDCZGCT in relation to the intraday market time unit on a bidding zone border, whereas all bidding zone borders currently specify the IDCZGCT in relation to the market time in the day-ahead timeframe (i.e. one hour). As the definition of the market time unit on the bidding zone border for the intraday timeframe was not legally clear until the adoption of these Terms and conditions, the TSOs need time to adapt. Therefore, these Terms and conditions for IDCZGOT provide for a transition period lasting until 1 January 2021, which also corresponds to the approximate date for harmonisation of imbalance settlement periods in accordance with Article 53 of the Electricity Balancing Regulation, which is used as a reference for clarifying the market time unit. During this transition period, TSOs may implement IDCZGCT in relation to the delivery hour instead of the market time unit on the bidding zone border.”
The above transition period will also enable TSOs to change at the same time the imbalance settlement period to 15 minutes and the IDCZGOT to 60 minutes (or 30 minutes where relevant) before each 15-minute market time unit on the bidding zone border.
ACER expects the harmonisation of the IDCZGOT to have a positive effect on market liquidity.
In general, setting IDCZGCT closer to real time, when more accurate information on the supply-demand balance is available, should lead to higher liquidity levels and reduce the need for more costly balancing services.
Article 59 of the CACM Regulation
1. By 16 months after the entry into force of this Regulation, all TSOs shall be responsible for proposing the intraday cross-zonal gate opening and intraday cross-zonal gate closure times. The proposal shall be subject to consultation in accordance with Article 12.
2. The intraday cross-zonal gate closure time shall be set in such a way that it:
(a) maximises market participants' opportunities for adjusting their balances by trading in the intraday market time-frame as close as possible to real time; and
(b) provides TSOs and market participants with sufficient time for their scheduling and balancing processes in relation to network and operational security.
3. One intraday cross-zonal gate closure time shall be established for each market time unit for a given bidding zone border. It shall be at most one hour before the start of the relevant market time unit and shall take into account the relevant balancing processes in relation to operational security.
4. The intraday energy trading for a given market time unit for a bidding zone border shall start at the latest at the intraday cross-zonal gate opening time of the relevant bidding zone borders and shall be allowed until the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time.
5. Before the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time, market participants shall submit to relevant NEMOs all the orders for a given market time unit. All NEMOs shall submit the orders for a given market time unit for single matching immediately after the orders have been received from market participants.
6. Orders matched in single intraday coupling shall be considered firm.
7. MCO functions shall ensure the anonymity of orders submitted via the shared order book.
Article 51(1)
From the intraday cross-zonal gate opening time until the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time, the continuous trading matching algorithm shall determine which orders to select for matching such that matching: (...)
Article 58(1)
Each coordinated capacity calculator shall ensure that cross-zonal capacity and allocation constraints are provided to the relevant NEMOs no later than 15 minutes before the intraday cross-zonal gate opening time.
Article 63(2)
Complementary regional intraday auctions may be implemented within or between bidding zones in addition to the single intraday coupling solution referred to in Article 51. In order to hold regional intraday auctions, continuous trading within and between the relevant bidding zones may be stopped for a limited period of time before the intraday cross-zonal gate closure time, which shall not exceed the minimum time required to hold the auction and in any case 10 minutes.
Article 63(4)(d)
the timetables for regional auctions shall be consistent with single intraday coupling to enable market participants to trade as close as possible to real-time.
National intraday gate closure times are also expected to be set at most one hour before real time.
Currently, various gate closure times are being applied throughout national markets, ranging from 30 minutes before the beginning of physical delivery in Germany, Austria and France to 60 minutes in Great Britain and Switzerland or more, which is the case in Spain (135 minutes), Portugal (135 minutes) and Italy (195-540 minutes).
An important caveat regarding the setting of gate closure times closer to physical delivery time is that this measure should not jeopardise operational security or hamper the integration of balancing markets, which might occur if they are set too close to real time.
Irrespective of this caveat, the scope for harmonising ID gate closure times across Europe is evident (Annual Report of the ACER and CEER on the Results of Monitoring the Internal Electricity and Gas Markets in 2016 (Electricity Wholesale Markets Volume) published in October 2017, p. 47).
Referring to the said TSO’s Proposal of 18 April 2016 ACER in the Consultation document of 9 January 2018 (Intraday Cross-Zonal Gate Opening and Gate Closure Times, PC_2018_E_01, p. 5) said:
“In contrast to the GOTs, the Proposal establishes a much greater harmonisation for the GCTs which is proposed to be set to 60 minutes before real time except for the EE-FI border (30 minutes before the real time). While a EU-wide harmonisation of the GCT is also important, the Agency considers that exceptions could be allowed if they can be justified with respect to the objective of the CACM Regulation. For example, such exceptions would further maximise market participants' opportunities for adjusting their balances by trading in the intraday market time-frame as close as possible to real time in accordance with Article 59(2)(a) of CACM Regulation. In principle, where bidding zones on both sides of the bidding zone border have internal gate closer shorter than 60 minutes before real time, the cross-zonal gate closure time could also be defined shorter than 60 minutes before real time.”
Regulatory chronicle
April 2018
The ACER adopted a decision
October 2017
All regulatory authorities referred the proposal for the intraday cross-zonal gate opening and intraday cross-zonal gate closure times to the ACER for a decision in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 9(12) of the CACM Regulation (the reason for the referral was that they were not able to come to an agreement on the proposal)
September 2017
All TSOs submitted to all regulatory authorities and the Agency an amended proposal for the intraday cross-zonal gate opening and closure time
December 2016
All TSOs submitted to all regulatory authorities and the Agency a proposal for the intraday cross-zonal gate opening and closure time
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Documentation |
Regulation establishing a Guideline on Capacity Allocation and Congestion Management - CACM (Regulation on market coupling), Articles 2(39), 51(1), 58(1), 59, 63(2), 63(4)(d)