Market coupling

Our goal is to establish a single, integrated market that guarantees consumers a reliable electricity supply at a fair price. 

The Dutch, French and Belgium electricity exchanges have been coupled since 2006 (Trilateral Market Coupling, TLC). This was extended to include Germany and Luxembourg in 2007 (CWE Market Coupling).

There are three coupling systems: 

1. Price coupling

2. Tight volume coupling 

3. Loose volume coupling

Price coupling

In price-based coupling, a single centralised system calculates the market prices and traded volumes of electricity, based on cross-border capacity and the order books of all power exchanges and TSOs in the coupled markets. The trilateral market coupling (TLC) system linking the power exchanges in the Netherlands, Belgium and France is an example. 

Tight volume coupling

'Tight volume coupling' determines the traded volumes between countries or regions before individual power exchanges calculate their own prices. ‘Tight’ in this context means that the volume traded is calculated on the basis of all relevant information, in the same way as in the price coupling system.. 

Loose volume coupling

In ‘loose volume coupling' , the volume traded between two countries or regions is calculated and then the prices are calculated separately. The difference with tight volume coupling is that the calculation is performed using only part of the relevant information, leading to a lower quality level.