Market supervision
The Energy Authority is the national regulator of the wholesale energy market in Finland. Executive powers of the Energy Authority include monitoring of compliance with Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council, hereinafter “REMIT”.
REMIT prohibits the abuse of inside information and the manipulation of the wholesale energy market. According to REMIT, market participants are obligated to publish any inside information on wholesale energy products that will likely have a significant impact on the wholesale energy market that they have in their possession. REMIT also requires that parties trading on the wholesale market register as market participants in the REMIT register maintained by the national regulator and report their transactions to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).
Wholesale energy products
Wholesale energy products included in the scope of the REMIT regulation are:
- Electricity or natural gas delivery contracts, provided that the delivery takes place within the EU
- Derivatives connected to electricity or natural gas that has been produced, traded or delivered within the EU
- Electricity or natural gas transmission contracts within the EU
- Derivatives connected to electricity or natural gas transmission within the EU
- Contracts on delivery or distribution of electricity or natural gas to end customers, but only if the end customer’s consumption capacity exceeds 600 GWh/year
Market participants
A market participants is a party to whom the regulation and obligations of REMIT mainly apply. In REMIT, a market participant refers to a person, transmission system operators included, who enters into transactions. Transactions also include the placing of orders to trade, in one or more wholesale energy markets.
In other words, all parties trading or submitting offers on wholesales energy products are included in the scope of application of REMIT. In this connection, “person” refers to both legal and natural persons.
Market participants include at least the following:
- Natural or legal persons who enter into transactions in the wholesale markets, such as sellers and buyers of energy, producers of electricity or natural gas, natural gas shippers and consignors, storage system operators (SSO), LNG system operators (LSO) and investment service firms
- Parties trading in energy derivatives
- Transmission system operators (TSO)
- Electricity or natural gas end users with a technical consumption capacity at a single location of at least 600 GWh/year
Legislation
Regulation (EU) No 1227/2011 on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT)
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1348/2014
Determines compliance with and content of the reporting obligation in more detail, for example
Commission Regulation (EU) No 543/2013 (Transparency Regulation)
Guidance
ACER maintains in its REMIT portal information on issues pertaining to REMIT. The portal includes information on the following, for example:
- REMIT legislation
- Technical reporting requirements for transactions
- Remit guidance notes
- List of registered reporting mechanisms
- European register of market participants
- Inside Information Platforms, IIPs
ACER prepares guidance on issues pertaining to the application of REMIT. The guidance is not legally binding. The guidance is primarily meant for national regulators, but it can also benefit market participants in cases where REMIT needs to be interpreted.
Market participants trading on the wholesale energy markets must register with one national regulator. Inclusion in the REMIT register is a prerequisite for trading on the wholesale energy market. Whether a market participant has been appropriately registered or not doesn't, however, affect the existence of the market participant’s other REMIT obligations.
The national regulator is determined on the basis of the market participant’s location or residence, or if the market participant is not located or does not reside in the EU, based on the member state in which the market participant operates. Hence, a market participant operating in Finland must, as a general rule, register with the Energy Authority, unless it is already registered with a regulatory authority in another EU member state.
The registration takes place in the Centralised European Register of Energy Market Participants (CEREMP).
Registration to CEREMP
Market participants trading on the wholesale energy markets must register with one national regulator.
The registration takes place in the Centralised European Register of Energy Market Participants (CEREMP).
Enquiries about the register and the CEREMP system used in the registration: [email protected].
Instructions on the registration process (pdf)
To whom does the reporting obligation apply?
At Union level, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) is responsible for monitoring the functioning of the wholesale energy markets. Market participants are required to report their wholesale energy market transactions in accordance with Article 8 of the REMIT Regulation. Reporting to ACER’s centralised reporting system (ARIS) is carried out via Registered Reporting Mechanisms (RRM). ACER maintains a list of registered reporting mechanisms. As the party subject to the reporting obligation, the market participant remains ultimately responsible for ensuring that the reporting obligation is duly fulfilled.
What does the reporting obligation entail?
The reporting obligation applies to trading on energy commodities and related financial derivatives. “Energy commodities” refers to electricity and natural gas, including liquefied natural gas or LNG. Both executed transactions and orders to trade (bids/offers) fall within the scope of reporting. Transactions to be reported include transactions involving the delivery, production or transmission of electricity or natural gas in an EU or EEA state. The reporting obligation on transmission only applies to transmission contracts between two or more market places or bidding zones (for example, at present Finland is a single bidding zone and transmission contracts within a single bidding zone are not to be reported).
The reporting obligation for transactions in the wholesale markets has been specified with the Implementing Regulation. The Implementing Regulation specifies in more detail to which contracts and orders the market participants’ obligation to supply information, as well as when and in which format the information must be submitted to the agency.
The Implementing Regulation further specifies the following details regarding reporting, for example:
- List of reported contracts
- Schedule for reports on transactions
- Reporting channels and procedures
- Technical and organisational requirements, as well as liability on reporting
- More specific regulations on data to be reported
Further questions regarding reporting and the reporting system: [email protected]
Obligation to disclose inside information
“Market participants shall publicly disclose in an effective and timely manner inside information which they possess” (Article 4 of REMIT).
The disclosure obligation applies to all market participants who possess:
- Any specific or unpublished information relevant to the capacity and use of facilities for production, storage, consumption or transmission of electricity or natural gas which
- Is directly or indirectly connected to one or several wholesale energy products; and
- Would, if published, probably have a significant impact on the prices of these products.
The disclosure obligation applies but is not limited to the following:
- Any information relevant to the capacity and use of facilities for production, storage, consumption or transmission of electricity or natural gas
- Any information related to the capacity and use of LNG facilities, including planned or unplanned unavailability of these facilities
Not disclosing inside information is possible only in exceptional cases. A market participant may, exceptionally and at its own risk, postpone the publication of inside information to protect its legitimate interests if
- This is not likely to mislead the general public; and
- The market participant is able to guarantee that the information remains confidential; and
- The market participant does not use the information to make any decisions regarding the trade of wholesale energy products.
All of the above-mentioned prerequisites must be met. In such a case, the market participant must submit the information and justification on why the disclosure will be postponed without delay to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the national regulatory authority (Energy Authority). This will not exempt the market participant from any investigation regarding a failure to report inside information or any consequences in case of suspected abuse.
How must inside information be disclosed?
Market participants must disclose inside information via Inside Information Platforms (IIPs). The responsibility for disclosing the information appropriately lies with the market participant itself.
Inside Information Platforms must ensure that inside information is disclosed in such a way that
- the public has effective and timely access to the information concerned, including via a website or a clearly documented Application Programming Interface (API), and
- the public can assess the information in a complete, accurate and timely manner.
The REMIT Portal maintained by the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) provides a sector-specific listing of Inside Information Platforms as well as access to the information disclosed via the platforms.
Publication of unavailability information
Notifications, content, and time limits for unavailability information in the electricity markets are regulated in more detail in the Transparency Regulation.
The Regulation requires that information on planned unavailabilities lasting at least one market time unit be provided without undue delay and no later than one hour:
- planned unavailabilities of consumption units of at least 100 MW
- changes in the actual availability of consumption units with a nominal capacity of at least 100 MW
- planned unavailabilities of generation units of at least 100 MW
- changes of at least 100 MW in the actual availability of generation units
- planned unavailabilities of production units of at least 200 MW
- changes of at least 100 MW in the actual availability of production units with an installed production capacity of at least 200 MW
Market participants (electricity producers and consumers) must provide the information either to Transmission System Operators or directly to the central inside information platform (IIP).
Fingrid has published a national guideline for electricity market participants operating in Finland on the publication of electricity market information.
Fingrid application guideline for the Transparency Regulation (in Finnish)
The Transparency Regulation lays down rules on the submission and publication of data in the electricity markets.It establishes a common minimum set of data relating to electricity generation, transmission and consumption, which is made available to market participants.
The Regulation established a central transparency platform, operated by ENTSO-E (the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity), where key electricity market information is published. The information is considered essential for market participants to make efficient production, consumption and trading decisions.
Transmission System Operators (TSOs), electricity producers and large electricity consumers are required to submit the relevant data to the TSO. They must ensure that the data provided is complete, accurate and of the required quality. The TSO is responsible for forwarding the data to ENTSO-E’s central transparency platform.
The Regulation requires, among other things, the publication of country-level generation data by market time unit and by production type with a delay of no more than one hour.
European TSOs are also required to publish long-term forecasts of electricity consumption, as well as detailed information on congestion management measures and balancing markets.
ENTSO-E has prepared a handbook that specifies the details and presentation formats for the provision of information.
Please contact us by email at: [email protected].