The introduction of a power exchange in Belgium is a direct response to the opening up of the European electricity markets. The 1996 and 2003 European Directives (1996/92/EC & 2003/54/EC), applied into the Belgian Law (29 April 1999 and 1 June 2005) have created an opportunity to launch an organized electricity market in Belgium, named Belpex.
Belpex is a short term, physical power exchange for the delivery and off-take of electricity on the Belgian hub. Belpex facilitates anonymous, cleared trading in 3 different market segments, namely a day-ahead market segment (DAM), a continuous day-ahead market segment (CoDAM) and a continuous intraday market segment (CIM). Belpex’ day-ahead market segment is coupled with its two neighbors, APX in the Netherlands and Powernext in France.
The partners of Belpex are APX (Dutch Power Exchange), Powernext (French Power Exchange), RTE (French Transmission System Operator), TenneT (Dutch Transmission System Operator) and Elia System Operator (Belgian Transmission System Operator). Endowed with a 3 million euro equity capital, Belpex shares are owned initially by APX (10%), Elia (60%), Powernext (10%), RTE (10%) and TenneT (10%).
As Europe moves closer to realizing the EU vision of an integrated internal energy market, there is a need for solving cross-borders constraints. In order to take away these trading barriers, there is a need to further co-operation between Transmission System Operators as well as the Power Exchanges. This can be aimed by joint implementation of implicit cross-border capacity auctioning or market coupling, optimizing the use of the available transmission capacity.
Mission
We are a leading contributor to the integration of the European electricity markets, accountable for delivering transparent price signals to our participants and the community.
Belpex' Activities
Belpex is a power exchange offering trading services in short term power, green certificates and combined heat and power certificates, providing the market with a transparent reference price. Belpex is a premier innovator in the design of coupled short term power markets, targeting a European wide liberalized electricity market.