EU’s Energy Council meeting to extend emergency measures on energy
The EU Ministers responsible for energy issues will convene for the Energy Council meeting in Brussels on 19 December 2023. The meeting seeks a political agreement to extend three emergency Council regulations on energy by 12 months. Minister of Climate and the Environment Kai Mykkänen will represent Finland at the meeting.
The three emergency measures are: 1) Regulation on gas solidarity (Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2576 enhancing solidarity through better coordination of gas purchases, reliable price benchmarks and exchanges of gas across borders), 2) gas price cap (Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2578 establishing a market correction mechanism) and 3) acceleration of renewable energy deployment (Council Regulation (EU) 2022/2577). Finland can accept the proposed changes.
In other matters, the Spanish Presidency will inform ministers about current legislative proposals. The Commission’s proposal to reform the electricity market design contains two Regulations: the so-called REMIT Regulation concerning wholesale market manipulation and a Regulation to improve the electricity market design.
The EU’s trilogue negotiations on the REMIT Regulation reached a preliminary agreement on 16 November 2023 while a preliminary agreement on the Regulation to improve the electricity market design was reached on 14 December 2023. Meanwhile, a preliminary agreement on the so-called gas market package (Directive and Regulation on gas market) was reached in December.
The energy ministers also discussed the proposed Regulation on improving the electricity market design at the Energy Council meeting in October.
In other matters, the Commission will give ministers a review of winter preparedness for 2023–2024 and its assessment of the updated National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). The Commission will also urge ministers to implement the Renewables Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive at national level. Finally, Belgium will present the work programme of its incoming six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union beginning on 1 January 2024.
Finland reports on exceptional situation in the electricity market on 23 November 2023
In other matters, Finland will report on an exceptional situation in the electricity market on 23 November 2023. On that day, a small Norwegian market operator erroneously offered nearly 6,000 MW of electricity to Finland for the entire following day at a price of EUR -500/MWh. The Nordic power exchange Nord Pool refused to correct this obvious error. However, no significant shortage of electricity was experienced on 24 November due to the responsible behaviour of the market operator making the error and the electricity producers.
What happened should not be possible. The rules on electricity marketplaces should allow the correction of obvious errors. For some reason, electricity exchanges did not react to the error at any point.
A similar event could take place anywhere in Europe. Finland therefore makes a serious request to the Commission to start preparations to amend the guidelines so that electricity exchanges would have both the possibility and the obligation to launch a mechanism to correct obviously erroneous bids. Finland points out that malicious actors could exploit such vulnerability.
Finland asks whether the electricity market could be better protected against hostile attacks in energy supply. That is why, Finland requests the Commission to consider revising Article 10 of the Electricity Regulation concerning technical price ceilings.
Inquiries:
Riku Huttunen, Director General, Minister of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 50 431 6518 Elina Johansson, Ministerial Adviser, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, tel. +358 50 301 4607
Sanna Ek-Husson, Senior Specialist, Permanent Representation of Finland, Brussels, tel. +32 470 206 178