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E-mailCommodity Exchange of the Year, 2010
Winner: APX-ENDEX
Anglo-Dutch APX-ENDEX is one of Europe’s most experienced energy exchanges, operating spot and derivatives markets for electricity and natural gas in The Netherlands, the UK and Belgium. APX-ENDEX facilitates the development of liberalised and integrated energy markets in Northwest Europe by providing an efficient, transparent and secure electronic trading environment.
The Exchange now has over 340 members from more than 15 countries and has offices in Amsterdam, London and Nottingham. Established in 1999, APX-ENDEX provides exchange trading, central clearing and settlement for its spot products and data distribution services. APX-ENDEX also offers benchmark data and industry indices.
The range of services offered to the market by APX-ENDEX was extended to energy derivatives after the merger of the Amsterdam Power Exchange (APX) with the European Energy Derivatives Exchange NV (ENDEX) which was successfully finalised in 2008 and in 2009 an integration project was initiated in order to secure the smooth integration of spot and futures trading as well as identifying synergies within the new combination. The synergy of APX’s experience in spot trading and ENDEX’s experience in derivatives trading has resulted in APX-ENDEX becoming a leading integrated one-stop-shop energy exchange, and the largest Continental European gas exchange.
In April 2010 APX-ENDEX and the Belgian Power Exchange (Belpex) announced their intention to merge, further enhancing European power market integration. As Europe moves towards realising the EU vision of a more integrated market, APX-ENDEX is actively working to provide trading solutions, such as market coupling and cross-border trading solutions.
APX-ENDEX had a leading role in the introduction of market coupling (implicit cross-border capacity auctioning), which optimises the use of available transmission capacity. Together with other exchanges and TSOs within the region, APX-ENDEX has introduced market coupling for the Dutch, Belgian and French spot power markets. This has proven to be highly successful, and the concept is currently being rolled-out to include the German, Luxembourgian and Nordic markets within the Central Western European (CWE) and Nordic market coupling projects.
APX-ENDEX is also involved in another European market coupling initiative – BritNed – the 1,000 MW cable linking the electricity markets of The Netherlands and the UK. Significant progress has been made in the development and implementation of BritNed and it is planned to go live at the beginning of 2011 with APX-ENDEX the designated exchange to implement and operate an implicit auction solution for BritNed, connecting the key electricity markets of APX-ENDEX between the UK and Continental Europe.
The combination of these solutions will enable market coupling from the Netherlands to all directions: North (via NorNed), East and South (via CWE) and West (via BritNed). These market coupling project initiatives remain a high priority for APX-ENDEX and are an especially significant contribution to the realisation of a more unified and efficient European energy marketplace.
At the end of 2009, APX-ENDEX, Belpex and Nord Pool took the first step towards the creation of an integrated cross-border intraday trading solution. The parties have worked closely to develop and establish this integrated cross-border intraday trading solution based on the existing Elbas technology. Significant progress in linking of the back-office settlement, clearing and nomination systems and providing cross-border trading opportunities to the members of the participating exchanges has been made, with the solution expected to go live by the end of this year.
APX-ENDEX has, together with the TSOs and other exchange partners, been instrumental in driving these integration projects.
At the same time, APX-ENDEX has experienced significant volume growth over the past years, but especially so in recent months. The combined power and gas volume of APX-ENDEX in 2009 was 412 TWh (210 TWh futures and 202 TWh in spot markets). Despite the global economic turmoil, the total volume of APX-ENDEX experienced 26% growth from the previous year. So far 2010 has seen a similar growth trend. Despite increasing competition in the gas market, APX-ENDEX’s TTF Gas markets have experienced significant growth during 2010 so far.
With growth in volumes, membership and new initiatives, APX-ENDEX has shown its commitment to the market in seizing new opportunities within and beyond its current markets, and improving and expanding its current product and service range. Voters in this year’s Awards were suitably impressed with these initiatives and fittingly the Award for Commodity Exchange of the Year is presented to APX-ENDEX.
The Award for Commodity Exchange of the Year 2010 was presented to Ms. Saana-Maaria Matilla, Head of Corporate Communications with APX-ENDEX by Gyles Brandreth, celebrated British author, broadcaster, actor and former Conservative Member of Parliament.
