Important step towards a common electricity market

18-12-2007

Transmission System Operators in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to set up joint service company

The Transmission System Operators Cegedel Net, Elia, ENBW TNG, E.ON Netz, RTE, RWE TSO and TenneT have decided to establish a joint cross-border services company, subject to obtaining the appropriate regulatory and corporate approvals. The setting up of this company marks an important step towards integrating the five electricity markets into a regional electricity market, as agreed upon in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of June 2007 between the Ministries, regulators, TSOs, power exchanges and representatives of the market participants of the five countries. 

The new company CASC-CWE (Capacity Allocation Service Centre for the Central Westeuropean Electricity market), will be located in Luxemburg. CASC-CWE will be a service company which, on behalf of the Transmission System Operators involved, will act as a single point to implement and operate services related to the auctioning of power transmission capacity on the common borders between the five countries. This company will make cross-border power exchanges and delivery easier for all market parties in the Central West European electricity market especially through the standardization of systems and rules.  Thanks to this initiative liquidity and competition in the five markets will increase.

Manager

Corné Meeuwis will be CASC-CWE's Managing Director as of January 1, 2008. Meeuwis has worked for the Dutch TSO, TenneT, as Manager Markets & Regulatory Affairs since 1999. He was previously involved in the creation of TSO Auction and in the realisation of the trilateral market coupling between Belgium, France and the Netherlands.