ABN AMRO’s Sustainable Impact Fund is partnering with SET Ventures on a 5 million euro investment in the energy market trading platform ETPA. ETPA makes trading in electricity simpler and more efficient.
The energy market has become much more complex over the last decade, largely due to all the new, small players in solar and wind power. The ETPA platform was specially developed for short-term electricity trading. Participants can use it to sell their surplus power or buy power to cover a shortfall. The platform supports both the delivery of electricity and the related payments. Major energy market players like Eneco and Vattenfall already use it, alongside smaller ones such as market gardeners and waste processing businesses.
Congestion management
It’s increasingly difficult to create new connections to electricity networks because there are already too many providers or users on them. This shortage of transport capacity on networks is called congestion. To get around this, the ETPA platform offers energy players access to GOPACS, the congestion management platform used by electricity grid administrators. Large users can use it to buy extra electricity, for example, as soon as there is a large supply of green power. By being connected to GOPACS, the ETPA platform is therefore contributing to more efficient use of the power grid.
Access to Europe
The Dutch Authority for Consumer and Market this week provided ETPA with the NEMO status (Nominated Electricity Market Operator). This status offers a mandate to run the integrated intraday electricity market across Europe. ETPA als gains access to the Joint European Order Book (XBID) and thus the same liquidity as other exchanges. By means of XBID, the EU aims to make energy markets more liquid and competitive across countries.
Sights set on Europe
Pol van der Linde, CEO of ETPA, welcomes the capital injection: “It is our ambition to turn ETPA into a full-scale European power exchange. So I’m delighted that the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund and SET Ventures are now facilitating us in rolling out our technology in Europe.”
