With regard to the obligations referred to in articles 8.4 and 8.6 of Decision ARG/elt 115/08 (hereinafter called “the TIMM”), as subsequently amended and supplemented by Decision ARG/elt 60/90, adopted by the “Autorità per l’energia elettrica e il gas” (the Italian electricity & gas regulator, hereinafter called “AEEG”), we inform you that the data reporting procedure described in AEEG’s notice of 2 April 2009 has been modified. Therefore, this notice replaces the previous ones.
a. Operators subject to reporting obligations
The obligation of notifying GME of the contracts referred to in article 8.4 falls on the counterparty qualifying as “operatore rilevante” (“relevant operator”), as defined in article 1.1 of AEEG’s Decision ARG/elt 115/08, as subsequently amended and supplemented by AEEG’s Decision ARG/elt 60/09.
Where both the counterparties to a contract qualify as relevant operators, the obligation conventionally falls only on the selling party; this party is defined as the injecting party in the case of contracts with physical delivery and as the party receiving the payments of non-indexed fees at the prices and/or indexes of the Italian electricity market in the case of financial contracts or, more generally, as the operator whose portfolio position as a result of the contract becomes shorter with reference to the prices and/or indexes of the Italian electricity market relevant for valuing the same contract.
Therefore, the counterparty does not need to confirm the contract; whether the counterparty is a non-relevant operator or a purchasing relevant operator, the counterparty may ask to be authorised to access the PDE with a view to verifying the accuracy of the data notified by the counterparty and possibly report them to GME.
The reporting obligation ceases when the operator ceases to qualify as relevant operator and arises when the operator acquires the qualification of relevant operator or, if the purchasing counterparty is also a relevant operator, when the selling operator ceases to qualify as relevant operator.
The updated list of the relevant operators will be posted on a monthly basis on AEEG’s and GME’s website and the reporting obligation will have effect from the second month following the publication.
b. Access to the PDE
Operators shall report their data by uploading XML files to a special External Data Platform (PDE – “Piattaforma Dati Esterni”). The PDE will be accessible via secure connection to
https://pde.ipex.it and entry of username and password.
c. Data referred to in article 8, para. 8.4 of the TIMM
All the contracts entered into relevant operators meeting the requirements laid down in article 1.1 of AEEG’s Decision ARG/ELT 115/08, as subsequently amended and supplemented by AEEG’s Decision ARG/ELT 60/09, shall be compulsorily reported.
For each contract, operators shall report the following hourly data:
· contract code: unique alphanumerical code assigned by the sender and identifying the individual contract;
· selling party: specified through the ETSO code of the operator involved; if the operator is not an electricity operator, the VAT number must be specified;
· registered name of the selling party: registered name of the selling party;
· operator counterparty: flag taking on the value of “1” if the counterparty is an electricity operator; otherwise, the flag is “0”;
· purchasing party: specified through the ETSO code of the operator involved; if the operator is not an electricity operator, the VAT number must be specified;
· registered name of the purchasing party: registered name of the purchasing party;
· type of contract:
o standard: contract traded in the regulated market;
o regulated OTC: over-the-counter contract for which the contracting parties have used the services provided by a regulated market;
o OTC: over-the-counter contract other than the previous one;
· regulated market: code of the regulated market where the contract is traded or where the services for the contract are provided (IDEX, MTE, TFS);
· contract structure:
o future: fixed-price contract settled in cash (e.g.: Idex);
o forward: contract with physical delivery (e.g.: MTE);
o swap: two-way Contract-for-Difference;
o option: one-way Contract-for-Difference (e.g. VPP);
o other;
· contract description: this field must be completed only if the contract structure is “other”; the contract structure must be specified and, if the contract has a mixed structure among those typified above, the percentages of the volumes pertaining to each structure must be specified;
· date of signature of the contract: in the yyyymmdd format;
· date: in the in the yyyymmdd format;
· time: in the hh format;
· indexed: flag taking on the value of “1” if the contract is indexed; otherwise, it is “0”; in the case of an indexed contract, only the hourly price of the contract may be modified on an ex-post basis;
· indexing: this field must be completed only for contracts whose “indexed” field has a value of “1”; the field contains the description of the price-indexing formula;
· flexible: flag taking on the value of “1” if the contract is flexible; otherwise, it is “0”. A contract is flexible if it provides that the volume of each hour may be modified on an ex-post basis, or if it provides that its duration may be extended or reduced. In the case of a flexible contract, both the price and the quantity of the contract may be modified and its duration may be lengthened or shortened;
· flexibility: this field must be completed only for contracts whose “flexible” field has a value of “1”; it contains the description of the type of flexibility;
· frequency: it is expressed in number of months; this field must be completed for indexed contracts; it expresses the frequency with which the price of the contract is retroactively updated;
· hourly quantity agreed in the contract on an ex-ante basis: in MW, with three decimals;
· reference price: this field describes the price to which the contract refers; it may take on the value of “PUN”, “Pzona”, “Other”. For instance, for a contract registered onto the PCE, it takes on the “PUN” value, whereas for a contract referring to the price of the northern zone (Nord), it takes on the “Pnord” value;
· forward price established in the contract on an ex-ante basis: expressed in €/MWh;
· hourly quantity exercised on an ex-post basis: in MW, with three decimals; valid only for flexible contracts;
· forward price contractually calculated on an ex-post basis: expressed in €/MWh; valid only for indexed and/or flexible contracts;
· premium specified in the contract: expressed in €/MWh; this premium must be specified, for instance, in the case of options.
The ex-ante hourly profile of the contract (hourly quantity agreed in the contract on an ex-ante basis and forward price established in the contract on an ex-ante basis) must be reported in its entirety within the above date.
In the case of “indexed” and/or “flexible” contracts, operators are also required to send a second file (in the format described in the “PDE – Implementation Guide” file posted on GME’s website at the above-mentioned address) within the 15th day of the month following the month of updating of the contract. The file shall only specify the contract code and the ex-post hourly profile of the contract pertaining to the previous month (hourly quantity exercised on an ex-post basis and forward price contractually calculated on an ex-post basis). For instance, in the case of a contract with quarterly updating, the ex-post price of the months of January, February and March shall be reported by the end of April.
The contracts received after the gate closure will be accepted anyway. However, if they have been received after the last working day of the month, they will be identified as “late reported”. Operators may send/change the contract profile hour by hour until the last working day of the month.
Upon submission (based on the contract code), the system will discriminate whether the contract is to be processed as a “New Contract” or as a “Change” to an existing contract. The PDE will formally validate the entered data, by ensuring that:
· the username and password identifying the sender are correct;
· the data have been received by the 15th day of the month. Otherwise, the data will be accepted anyway, but identified as “late” only if they have been received after the last working day of the month;
· the type of character used for each field is valid (text format, number format, etc.);
· in the case of a “New Contract”, the PDE will always ensure:
§ that all the mandatory fields have been completed (e.g. a contract of the type “other” must have a “Description”);
§ that, in the case of an “Operator counterparty” with the value of “1”, the counterparty is known to the system;
§ that the sender of the contract is specified as a selling party or as a purchasing party to the contract;
§ that the specified contract code does not correspond to an already existing code without meeting the “Change” requirements;
· in the case of a “Change”, the PDE will always ensure:
§ that the sender matches the original sender of the contract to be changed;
§ that the contract has been received before the last working day of the month (otherwise the contract will be accepted anyway but identified as “late”).
Upon submission of the ex-post profiles, the system will identify the related contract through its CodiceContratto (Contract Code) and then carry out the above-described validations limited to the price/quantity fields of the ex-post hourly data.
d. Data referred to in article 8.6 of the TIMM
Electricity operators shall report the following data for each unit in respect of which they are entitled to submit offers/bids as holders of appropriate delegations issued by the dispatching users:
· Date: in the yyyymmdd format;
· Time: in the hh format;
· Unit: specified through the unit code assigned by Terna;
· Operator code: specified through the ETSO code;
· Share of available capacity: value from 0 to 1.
Upon submission, the PDE will formally validate the entered data, by ensuring that:
· the username and password identifying the sender are correct;
· the data have been received within 10:00 of the day of closing of the market session pertaining to the day to which the capacity share refers;
· the sender is a dispatching user of the unit to which the margins refer or has been delegated to submit offers/bids in respect of such unit;
· the type of character used for each field is valid (text format, number format, etc.);
· all the data received within the above time limit will overwrite the data already received from the same operator for the same hours and the same units;
· the hourly data of each capacity share are lower than or equal to 1.
Upon expiration of the time limit for reporting the data, the PDE will formally validate the entered data as follows:
· for each valid “applicable period-unit” pair for which the sum of the specified capacity shares is 1, it will identify the n-tuple as valid;
· for each “applicable period-unit” pair for which no more recent valid configuration exists (the submitted data have not been updated or the sum of the updated data is other than 1), it will recover the latest valid n-tuple and specify it in the flow date;
· for each “applicable period-unit” pair for which no valid configuration exists, the system will use the capacity shares reported on the PCE as per article 18.3.b of AEEG’s Decision 111/06. Failing this, the system will assign the value of 1 to the dispatching user and the value of 0 to any other electricity operator entitled to submit offers/bids in respect of the same unit.
All the data received within the above time limit will overwrite those already received from the same operator for the same unit and the same hour. The sender will be able to display the submitted data, as possibly corrected.
e. Time schedule
The contracts shall be reported by uploading data to the PDE by the 15th day of the month following the month of signature of the contract (so-called “gate closure”).
In the case of indexed and/or flexible contracts, the ex-post updating shall take place by sending the related data to the PDE within the 15th day of the month following the month of updating of the contract (so-called “gate closure”). For instance, in the case of a contract with quarterly updating, the ex-post price of the months of January, February and March shall be reported by the end of April.
The contracts received after the gate closure will be accepted anyway, but reported to AEEG as “late” only if GME has received them after the last working day of the month following the month of signature of the contract (for contracts to be reported) or of the month following the month of updating of the contract (for indexed and/or flexible contracts already reported with ex-post updating).
The reporting process on the PDE is scheduled to start in November 2009 for contracts signed after 1 October 2009. The time limit for reporting contracts previously signed and referring to periods after 1 January 2009 is 31 January 2010.
For clarifications, contact:
Rome, 27 July 2009