Irish electricity market participants should prepare now for October 2017

River Liffey in Dublin. Image: Ian Stannard, Flickr, CC license

The Irish electricity market is about to undergo a huge change with the move to the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM) in October 2017.

Recently someone asked me what I was expecting from 2016. With little hesitation I replied, “… to be busy!” I think that anyone involved with the Irish electricity market would make the same reply, as a busy and exciting couple of years lie ahead.

The Irish electricity market is about to undergo a huge change with the move to the Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM) in October 2017. The move to I-SEM is designed to harmonise the Irish electricity market with the wider European Market. In the long term this will allow for Irish electricity to be traded with a much wider European market, opening up opportunities for the Irish market participants. I-SEM will introduce a balancing market, intraday market, day-ahead market, forward market and capacity market. The new structure will address a number of emerging issues resulting from changes in generation, demand and interconnection — delivering benefits such as security of supply, promotion of renewable energy sources, pan-European competition, maximisation of efficient use of interconnectors and provision of a sound investment climate, to name a few.

While offering further trading opportunities, this move also poses significant change for existing market participants, as well as those that will now be required to act as a market participant. This change will impact company structures, human resources, processes and technologies. As part of this wider change, participants will need to be able to communicate and settle with these new markets.

Whilst there has been significant industry engagement, October 2017 is not that far away, and work is still ongoing by the Irish regulatory authorities finalising the market design. This introduces project risk around implementing new systems on time (and within budget). Those who will be market participants should be preparing now for these changes. Click here for more details.

Image credit: Ian Stannard, CC license, cropped, via Flickr

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About the author

Annabel Blagg

Annabel Blagg is a Senior Account Manager at ABB Enterprise Software. Annabel has 20 years of enterprise software experience within utilities and telecoms sectors. The last 9 years of that have been with ABB Enterprise Software looking after clients across Europe and most recently focused solely on the Irish Market as well as selected clients in the UK. As part of this responsibility Annabel manages both new business and existing client relationships ensuring that client needs are met with the best solutions and Services from ABB.
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