April 11 (SeeNews) - Macedonia's government said it has discussed and accepted the proposed text of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on coupling the country's day-ahead electricity market with its peer market in Bulgaria.
One of the goals of this initiative is to provide Macedonia with access to the internal electricity market in Southeast Europe in order to offer market participants new business opportunities, the government in Skopje said in a statement on Tuesday.
In January, the Independent Bulgarian Energy Exchange (IBEX) said it is discussing with representatives of the Electricity Transmission System Operator of Macedonia, MEPSO, and the Macedonian regulator the possibility of coupling the two countries' day-ahead power markets.
"If an agreement is reached regarding common steps and priorities in this area, a memorandum of cooperation should be signed," IBEX told SeeNews in an email at the time.
Generally, prices on coupled markets reflect as closely as possible aggregate power supply and demand on the day-ahead markets of two adjacent market areas, IBEX noted. Prices of power supplies per hour on coupled markets are closer than in market areas where the day-ahead markets function in isolated mode.
IBEX, developed in partnership with Norwegian-based Nord Pool Spot, was established in January 2014. The market started operating in day-ahead mode on January 19, 2016.
On Wednesday, IBEX opened for trading its new intraday market segment.
In January, the Bulgarian Stock Exchange (BSE) completed the acquisition of IBEX for 5.2 million levs ($3.1 million/2.7 million euro).
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)