Bloomberg:  "Power markets across 15 European nations from the U.K. to Finland are linked from today in their biggest transformation since liberalization in the 1990s.  Network operators and energy exchanges for the first time held a single auction at noon Paris time to determine next-day power prices across countries that account for 75 percent of Europe’s electricity supply. The move is intended to smooth price differences between nations through better control of cross-border flows, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, or ACER, said Jan. 30.
The process, known as market coupling, is the biggest step in a push to integrate electricity markets by the end of this year across the 28-nation European Union, which forced utilities to open up their business to competitors in the 1990s. Linking supply and demand through trading may save consumers as much as 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion) a year by enabling electricity to flow efficiently to markets where it is most needed, according to the European Commission, the bloc’s regulator."