Spain's CNMC Approves Electricity Market Revisions, Introducing 96 Trading Rounds in the Continuous Market

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Spain's National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) has approved modifications to the operating rules of the electricity day-ahead and intraday markets, as well as to electricity procedures PO3.1, PO7.2, PO9.1, and PO 14.4. The body stated that these measures aim to activate the continuous intraday market by introducing 96 trading rounds.

In the Spanish wholesale electricity market, electricity trading is organized across multiple segments. Medium and long-term trading is used for risk hedging, while short-term trading (i.e., day-ahead trading) handles the actual scheduling of energy delivery and consumption. Within the short-term segment, known as the spot market, a distinction must be made between the day-ahead market and the intraday market. The day-ahead market is the main trading segment, with trading volumes far exceeding those of other segments, and its price serves as a reference benchmark for various purposes, ranging from regulated tariffs to bilateral transactions. The intraday market helps market participants adjust their schedules when generation or consumption forecasts change, consisting of three auctions held at different times and timeframes throughout the day, alongside continuous trading.

Since its introduction in 1998, trading in the aforementioned segments has traditionally been conducted on an hourly basis. Due to the high volatility of renewable generation, hourly granularity has become insufficient for such generation to accurately schedule production or for market prices to fully reflect system conditions. To support the transition toward a CO2-free system based on renewable generation technologies, shortening the scheduling period has become a necessary measure. In March 2025, trading in the intraday market (including the continuous market) evolved to 15-minute products; in October of the same year, the day-ahead market adopted 15-minute trading.

With the new revisions approved by the CNMC, the process of evolving the electricity market toward 15-minute scheduling will be completed. The continuous market will introduce 96 trading rounds, whereas the previous hourly scheduling, although already using 15-minute products, still consisted of 24 rounds. The CNMC noted that achieving 96 trading rounds in the continuous market entails extremely high technical complexity. The 15-minute products implemented in 2025 have already quadrupled the volume of data to be processed and transmitted, and the 96 trading rounds will further quadruple the number of processes in the continuous intraday market segment, with these processes occurring just one hour before the physical delivery of electricity.

The body stated that market participants will be able to modify their positions every 15 minutes, rather than operating in hourly blocks, thereby better adapting to changes in wind, solar radiation, or demand. With shorter and more real-time intervals for correcting schedules, deviations between planned generation and actual production or consumption will be reduced, along with a corresponding decrease in the need for reserve capacity activation and other adjustment services. To ensure the proper functioning of the procedures, the new regulations also include various efficiency measures, including adjustments to the type and scope of exchanged information, temporal adjustments to processes, and the establishment of safeguard mechanisms in the event of failures.