Message-ID: <30754701.1075846361235.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 03:23:00 -0800 (PST) From: mark.schroeder@enron.com To: steven.kean@enron.com, john.sherriff@enron.com, mark.frevert@enron.com Subject: Poland: Polish Grid Operator Sees 6-Month Delay To Balancing Mkt Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: Mark Schroeder X-To: Steven J Kean, John Sherriff, Mark Frevert X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Steven_Kean_Dec2000_1\Notes Folders\Notes inbox X-Origin: KEAN-S X-FileName: skean.nsf FYI, headline tells it all. Further delay in Polish power market opening. Though there is light at the end of the tunnel, it is now about 3 months further out than my last e-mail to you on this subject. let me know if you need more. thanks mcs ---------------------- Forwarded by Mark Schroeder/LON/ECT on 12/12/2000 11:25 --------------------------- Philip Davies 12/12/2000 11:14 To: Poland cc: Subject: Poland: Polish Grid Operator Sees 6-Month Delay To Balancing Mkt Confirmation of our understanding. ---------------------- Forwarded by Philip Davies/LON/ECT on 12/12/2000 11:17 --------------------------- djcustomclips@djinteractive.com on 12/12/2000 11:04:09 Please respond to nobody@mail1.djnr.com To: 140569@mailman.enron.com cc: Subject: Poland: Polish Grid Operator Sees 6-Month Delay To Balancing Mkt Polish Grid Operator Sees 6-Month Delay To Balancing Mkt 12/12/2000 Dow Jones International News (Copyright (c) 2000, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) WARSAW -(Dow Jones)- An hourly balancing market in Poland's electricity sector - the key to an open market - won't come into operation until July 1, 2001, six months later than originally scheduled, grid operator officials told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday. "Tests are still going on in the introduction of (information technology) software for all entities involved in the balancing market. We expect a test period of six months as of Jan. 1 and for the system to 'go live' in July 2001," said Marek Zerka, deputy president of Polish grid operator Polskie Sieci Elektroenergetyczne. Industry insiders say an hourly balancing market is essential for the effective functioning of a liberalized electricity market in Poland. "Without an hourly balancing market, trade in the whole sector won't function properly," Wladyslaw Mielczarski of Energoprojekt-Consulting SA told the EuroForum conference in Warsaw recently. The chief benefit of the hourly balancing market is that it would push both generators and distributors to develop more sophisticated purchasing and risk management strategies, which in turn would increase trading volumes on the Polish Power Exchange, or Polpx, analysts said. The introduction of a fully functioning hourly balancing market would end PSE's current practice of setting monthly prices for balancing market electricity on the basis of estimated demand for the following month. Analysts say this is a cumbersome and inaccurate procedure, in which physical supply of electricity and the financial settlement of accounts only roughly correlates. PSE and a group of companies, including Polpx and the power plants Elektrownia Dolna Odra and Elektrownia Patnow-Adamow-Konin, started testing computer systems for the balancing market Oct. 1, and tests are ongoing, Zerka said. Officials at Elektrownia Dolna Odra said the power plant was technically fully prepared for the Jan. 1 start. However, Zerka said there were some technical teething problems with Polpx's software, and uncertainties related to the compatibility of software used by different entities. Zerka said the hourly balancing market will be based on the "pay-as-bid" system used in the U.K. This means that participants will need a risk management and trading strategy in place, and can't continue basing their sales or purchases on marginal costs, said analysts. Until the balancing market starts operating in July, PSE will continue to draw up monthly coordination plans. Many analysts say the low volumes the power exchange has had since its inception in July are largely caused by problems of inaccuracies in the monthly settlement of physical flows. Polpx recently said it needs at least 4% of total domestic turnover to break even, and up to 7% before it can start thinking about introducing forwards and derivatives markets in the Polish electricity sector. It has around 1% of total turnover today, and the delay in setting up the balancing market means that bigger volumes won't come about until the second half of 2001, insiders said. -By Joe Harper, Dow Jones Newswires; 48-22 622-2766; joe.harper@dowjones.com Folder Name: Poland Relevance Score on Scale of 100: 90 ______________________________________________________________________ To review or revise your folder, visit http://www.djinteractive.com or contact Dow Jones Customer Service by e-mail at custom.news@bis.dowjones.com or by phone at 800-369-7466. (Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 609-452-1511 or contact your local sales representative.) ______________________________________________________________________ Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved