Attend EMART Energy to understand the progress toward a harmonised energy market
– the view of EFET and 800 of Europe’s most influential energy traders and stakeholders.

In the last year world events have demonstrated again that the price of energy can be highly volatile. Wholesale markets in oil and coal first, then gas and power, have been rocked by the financial sector crisis, followed rapidly by the start of a severe global recession.The viability of electricity and gas trading in Europe is dependent on multiple factors. In some regions sector liberalization, competition and liquidity have only a fragile hold. Their fragility had been thought to be separate from the traditional play of supply and demand, but in troubled times this is no longer self-evident. At EMART Energy parallel sessions will debate the various policy reactions to the credit crisis and recession, as well as the evolving regulatory picture, where insufficiently harmonised transmission access mechanisms will be a hot topic.

Power traders are trying to understand how changes to cross border capacity calculation and allocation may work out in future. They see that some national and regional electricity markets still display markedly different structural characteristics at the wholesale level, in spite of regulators’ efforts to bring about harmonisation. Meanwhile the next phase of European gas market liberalisation will pick-up pace, bringing stricter unbundling rules, may mean restructuring of the gas industry in certain countries. More immediately the Russia-Ukraine gas crisis at the start of 2009 suddenly put the issue of energy security back at the top of the agenda.

At EMART Energy you can hear about improvements in transaction processing and back office operations in the data exchange and automation session, or update your understanding of EFET legal work on contract standardisation in the pre-conference workshops and master class. In the one day risk management session you will learn about the consequences of the financial crisis for enterprise-wide handling of risks in the energy sector.

Another exciting session will deal with market integrity and transparency, especially regulators’ determination to improve post trade transparency and its practical effects on traders. Part of the power trading session, and a special stream on emissions trading, will allow you to focus on energy and the environment: how will EU decision-makers reconcile the goal of sustainability with the functioning of the wholesale market? In particular the EC is still keeping the market in tension over the question when and how renewable energy certificates will become tradable across the EU, and if so what freedom will be given to traders to optimizing the renewable energy value chain.

Looking forward to meeting you in Barcelona for happy reunions with many, many of your industry colleagues at EMART Energy 2009!

Paul van Son, Chairman EFET

EMART Energy will include sessions on:

Power trading:

Join the power trading sessions and the interactive panel on market coupling and electricity market convergence. Participate in the discussion on trading the cross commoditiy spreads: green spread, dark spread and spark spread. Find out if they give good investment signals. Hear the latest developments in organisation of intraday and balancing markets and debate ways to facilitate power trading after the day ahead gate closure.

Gas Trading:

Learn about the current commercial issues for LNG trading and downstream gas markets. Hear new ideas on how to implement regional integration and establish balancing markets, and debate regulatory proposals on capacity allocation and congestion management. Identify gas price formation trends, recent developments at Europe’s gas hubs and the evolving role of exchanges. Discuss the impact of new gas infrastructure, crucial to ensure flexibility of supply and a well-functioning internal gas market

Smart automation:

Hear about improvements in transaction processing and back office operations . A common IT architecture, coupled with standardised data formats, codings and automated processing can deliver significant cost savings and increase the efficiency of middle and back office operations. Evaluate the benefits of the newest EFETnet offering: electronic Position Matching, whereby you could assess your counterparty exposures quickly and automatically.

Renewable energy and emissions trading:

Expand your market horizons on energy and environment. Participate in the session on renewable energy as a future feature of the power sector. How can traders and policymakers reconcile the goal of sustainability with the functioning of the wholesale market? Discuss the inevitable growth of renewable portfolios in order to meet the targeted 20% in the energy consumption mix. Get updates on the VN Climate negotiations and the outlook for carbon markets in the USA. Hear the latest information on carbon capture and storage, and auctioning in the EU ETS and the future of CER’s in the emissions trading session

Risk management:

Discuss the latest developments in risk management in a special one day session. What are the consequences of the financial crisis on the enterprise-wide risk management system? Find out how to develop optimal energy risk management strategies. Discuss market risk, operation risk and credit risk.

Market integrity and transparency:

Be informed on market integrity and transparency, regulators’ determination to improve post trade transparency and its practical effects on traders. Participate in the development of a tailor made EU Transparency and Market Integrity regime and discuss the future of energy trading regulation.