Nord Pool exchange to offer new Norway-Britain power cable capacity

By Nora Buli

OSLO (Reuters) - Energy exchange Nord Pool will provide a platform offering traders day-ahead capacity on a new subsea power cable linking Norway to Britain from 2021, it said on Monday.

Nord Pool would offer capacity for the 1,400-megawatt North Sea Link cable on behalf of its operators, British electricity system operator National Grid <NG.L> and its Norwegian counterpart Statnett.

Since Britain will not be able to access Europe’s Internal Energy Market (IEM) once it fully leaves the European Union from Jan. 1 next year, Nord Pool would offer capacity through an implicit day-ahead auction model.

This means the auctioning of transmission capacity will be included in the auctions of electrical energy to ensure the most beneficial power flows from areas with surplus energy and low prices to markets with a power deficit and higher prices.

“This new solution, delivered by Nord Pool through its day-ahead auction, offers a blueprint for how the GB market could operate outside of the IEM,” the exchange said.

Nord Pool already runs day-ahead power auctions for Britain, the Nordics, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria and the Netherlands.

The North Sea Link will be the first power cable directly linking Britain and Norway.

Britain officially left the European Union in March but remains in a transition period until the end of December.

(Reporting by Nora Buli; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)