This month Federica Davò, Researcher in the ‘Energy Markets Regulation’ group, analyzes in the new issue of ‘APE – Appunti di Energia’ (energy notes) the impact that the removal of the PUN – Prezzo Unico Nazionale (single national price) may have on day-ahead market outcomes.

The energy transition and the achievement of the 2030 goals put the focus on renewables growth, new market players and a deeper integration among European countries. That’s why it is necessary to plan for the evolution of the electricity market design. Italy is the only country in Europe where buyers (with the exception of pumping) are subject to a single purchase price, the so-called PUN, regardless of the area they are located. The European Commission requested Italy to plan an evolution of the national electricity market design in order to remove the PUN as of 2025 and move to a purely district market. Against this backdrop, the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security acknowledged this request and, after receiving a favorable opinion from the national regulatory authority ARERA, published the decree to overcome the PUN on April 18, 2024.

To better understand the impact that the PUN had on Italian consumers, a methodology was developed to compare the results of the Italian market with Single National Price and a theoretical purely district Italian market. This analysis aims to show how the solution may change in case the PUN constraint is taken into account or not. In fact, without such a constraint, not only the purchase price, but also the sales price and volumes accepted may be different. This happens because in the electricity market, purchase offers with a bid price above the market price and sales offers with a bid price below the market price are accepted. With a new purchase price (the district price and no longer the PUN), some bids that were previously accepted may be rejected and vice versa, depending on the area. As a result, district purchase volumes change and, due to the supply-demand balance constraint, district sales volumes are redistributed, and what had been accepted and rejected in consideration of the PUN also changes; consequently, in general, new prices may be set for each market zone.

In addition, an analysis was carried out focussing on assessing the results in terms of the impact on electricity markets of the change in the generation technology mix due to the increase of generation from renewable sources, the prospects for the development of active demand participation in markets, and the evolution of networks to 2030 is reported. The results showed that high penetration of renewables has a strong effect on price deltas between Italian areas and on transit saturation (resulting in price separation between two contiguous areas) favoring, in terms of price, areas with the highest solar and wind generation.

In this month’s EPA all the details and features shown in photos.