Inside information on the energy market
Energy market participants must publish inside information as quickly as possible, and they cannot use inside information for trading. That is prohibited under the European regulation REMIT (Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency).
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Inside information according to REMIT
Inside information is information of a precise nature, which the market is not aware of, and which can have a significant effect on the prices of energy products on the wholesale markets.
Inside information due to outages
There is no absolute minimum limit for the production capacity from which you need to publish non-available production. This depends on the market circumstances.
Most traders consider outages above 50 to 100 MW to be important information. That is why such information may be considered inside information.
When checking inside-information publications, we check the publication of non-availability above 100 MW.
Inside information due to reduced capacity
If your production needs to be shut down partially or completely, you need to publish this as inside information, even if another market participant has caused this. You know that less production capacity is available on the market. At that moment, that is inside information that only you and that third party know of.
Example
- Your plant or wind park has been closed down because of a disruption at the system operator.
- Due to bird migration, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) has ordered offshore wind parks on the North Sea to shut down temporarily.
Publishing in a timely manner
As an energy market participant, you must publish inside information in a timely manner: within one hour and, in any case, before you trade in energy products.
You can do so on an Inside Information Platform (IIP). See the list of approved IIPs.
Exception
In two situations, you may delay the publication of inside information:
- Delaying is the only way to protect your legitimate interests
- You need to enter into these transactions because you would otherwise suffer direct losses.
Please report your delay and the reason thereof as quickly as possible to us and to ACER, the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators.
IT problems are not an excuse for publishing information later.
Insider trading
If you publish inside information too late or fail to do so at all, and you trade, you engage in inside trading. This is a serious type of market abuse.
Insider trading means that a company is trading on the basis of information that other market participants do not have, even though that information should have been public. As a result, that company is able to make better decisions than do other market participants. That is why insider trading is strictly prohibited under REMIT.
Example
You own a coal-fired power plant. It suffers an unexpected outage. You subsequently trade without publishing this information, and solve the problem only afterwards. This is insider trading, which is not allowed.
Separating communication between producers and traders
Only the separation of internal communication processes will prevent you from unintentional insider trading. Therefore, clearly separate internal processes for communication about production from processes for trading on the wholesale market. You can do so by, for example, clearly separating traders and dispatchers, both physically and in terms of their roles.
Sources
- Articles 2, 3, and 4, Regulation (EU) no. 1227/2011