Impact of the price coupling of regions project on the day-ahead electricity market in Italy

The integration of a European Electricity Market has leaded to one single market with multi-area which are considered as bidding zones; currently, it regards only the day-ahead market. The Price Coupling of Regions (PCR) project is an initiative for the day ahead market of seven power exchanges APX, Belpex, EPEX SPOT, GME, Nord Pool Spot, OMIE, and OTE. The Italian Power Exchange (GME) has become a part of the PCR since 24thJanuary 2015. Thus, the impact of PCR on GME after one year of the operation needs to be investigated. In this paper, the authors evaluate the impact of PCR on the Italian Power Exchange one year before and after 24thJanuary 2015 from three points of view: (i) the convergence of electricity price, (ii) congestion management, and (iii) the price maker in case of no congestion. The used data is available on GME, EPEX Spot, France TSO, Austria TSO and ENTSO-E websites for 2014, 2015 and 2016.