Direct access to European energy and flexibility markets

Direct access to European energy and flexibility markets with Direct+

Direct+ is a plug-and-trade solution designed to make access to European energy and flexibility markets simpler, faster, and more cost-effective. Direct+ was developed in collaboration between EPEX SPOT and ENTRNCE and reduces financial, operational, and technical barriers to entry. With a single membership, participants can now trade independently on EPEX SPOT’s energy and flexibility markets, with financial settlement included. In the Netherlands, Direct+ also offers a direct connection to GOPACS, the flexibility market operated by the joint grid operators. This allows participants to focus on their trading strategy while Direct+ provides the access infrastructure. The onboarding process is completed within two months, after which active trading can begin. 

"Direct+ combines all the building blocks for easy access to energy and flexibility markets into a single membership."

Direct+ combines all the necessary building blocks into a single membership: market access, integrated BRP services, pre-payment via an e-wallet, and fully automated financial settlement. In addition, participants save on costs because there are no intermediaries between them and the markets.

Through the same connection, Direct+ participants can also trade on the spot markets, the flexibility markets (such as GOPACS in the Netherlands), and the reserve markets. This allows participants to maximize the value of their assets while simultaneously contributing to local congestion management and national system balance maintenance.

Grid congestion and untapped flexibility

The Netherlands is grappling with structural grid congestion. More than 12,000 projects are on hold, and the economic loss amounts to €40 billion per year. The demand for flexible capacity will increase significantly in the coming years: it is expected to reach 8 to 20 GW by 2035. That flexibility is available within the system but is not being utilized sufficiently. The same trends can be observed throughout the rest of Europe.

Three ways to unlock flexibility

ENTRNCE identifies three ways to unlock flexibility.
The first and least expensive step is implicit flexibility: allowing as many parties as possible to respond to national price signals, such as the day-ahead and intraday markets, imbalance prices, as well as future time-of-use grid tariffs. If this proves insufficient at specific locations and times, the second step follows: local flexibility markets, in which grid operators act as a single buyer. Effective market mechanisms here primarily require liquidity. Direct+ ensures more active participation and makes this market more effective, thereby simultaneously lowering the average price paid by grid operators.

If market mechanisms fail to unlock sufficient flexibility, bilateral contracts provide the safety net that grid operators need. This final piece is less scalable than market mechanisms but indispensable for ensuring system stability.

Many market participants are not yet trading directly

Market participants such as large-scale consumers, solar and wind power generators, aggregators, regional energy suppliers, and BESS operators have sufficient volume and flexible capacity to play a meaningful role. Yet a large proportion of them do not yet participate directly in energy and flexibility markets. The financial, technical, and operational barriers to direct market access have so far been too high for this segment. As a result, a large portion of the available capacity remains untapped.

What Direct+ means for the energy system

More active market participants increase liquidity in energy and flexibility markets, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of these markets. For grid operators, this means that more flexibility is unlocked through more effective market mechanisms, both to support national balance maintenance and for local congestion management.

Direct+ was developed to make exactly this possible: by removing the barriers to direct market access, more parties can actively contribute to a more flexible and efficient energy system.