The electricity market is the set of transactions arising from the participation of the market agents in the sessions of the daily and intraday markets, forward market, and from the application of the System Technical Operation Procedures. Physical bilateral contracts concluded by buyers and sellers are incorporated in the production market once the daily market has closed.
Market participants are companies authorised to participate in the electricity production market as electricity buyers and sellers. Entities that are authorised to engage in the market are electricity producers, last resort resellers and resellers, direct consumers and companies or consumers resident in other countries that are authorised to participate as resellers.
Producers and direct consumers may participate in the market as market participants or sign physical bilateral contracts.
Direct consumers wishing to participate in the production market may have access to all the possibilities that the market offers other electricity applicants, regardless of their size. However, if their participation is restricted solely to purchasing electricity to cover their daily consumption requirements, their participation in the market is very simple; they may purchase any electricity for future consumption that they deem necessary and receive invoices for electricity actually consumed from the market every day.
The economic management of the electricity market is entrusted to OMI-POLO ESPAÑOL, S.A. (OMIE).
The Processes in the Production Market are as follows:
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Most transaction are carried out in the daily market. All available production units must participate in this market as sellers and are not linked to a bilateral contract, as well as non resident retailers registered as sellers. Buyers on the daily market are last resort resellers, resellers, direct consumers and non resident retailers registered as buyers. The result ensures that maximum interconnection capacity with external electricity systems is not exceeded, considering physical bilateral contracts that affect international interconnections .
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Resolution of technical constraints. Once the daily market session has been held and national physical bilateral bids have been received, the system operator evaluates the technical viability of the operating schedule of the production units in order to guarantee the safety and reliability of supply on the transmission network. If the result of daily market matching and physical bilateral contracts does not respect the maximum exchange capacity between electricity systems or the mandatory security requirements, the technical constraints solution procedure is applied, which consists, firstly, of the modification of purchases or sales from external electricity systems responsible for this excess in interconnection exchanges and, secondly, of the assignation of the power of the production units.
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The intraday market is an adjustment market that is open to production units, last resort resellers, resellers, direct consumers and non resident retailers engaging as buyers and sellers who are market agents. In order for buyers on the daily market to be able to participate in the intraday market, they must have participated in the corresponding daily market session or must have executed a physical bilateral contract.
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The purpose of ancillary services and deviation management is to ensure that energy is supplied under established conditions of quality, reliability and security and that production and demand are balanced at all times. The system operator incorporates regulating band ancillary services in the viable daily schedule after the daily market sessions have been held. After every intraday market session, the system operator manages any deviations in real time using ancillary services and the deviation management procedure.