With its new intraday trading platform, Alpiq is making short-term electricity trading easier than ever before. Customers receive practically real-time access to market prices and can trade with a single click – quickly, transparently, and without entry barriers. This is an important step towards greater flexibility and the integration of renewable energies.
What makes the new platform unique?
Damien Muller: Alpiq is launching a platform where customers can view intraday market prices (bid and ask) at any time and execute trades at the click of a button. Compared to the current situation, where such transactions are typically made by phone or email, the new platform has much greater price transparency and is far more intuitive for customers to use.
With this platform, we are creating genuine added value for our clients – with greater transparency, faster execution and a significantly more user-friendly experience.
Why is Alpiq opting for this solution?
Holger Feser: With fluctuating renewable energy sources expanding – particularly photovoltaics in Switzerland – the importance of short-term electricity trading is steadily increasing. Forecast deviations must be compensated for in ever shorter periods of time to avoid additional balancing energy costs.
This effect will be further amplified with the introduction of the price-in model for calculating balancing energy costs from 1 January 2026. From this point on, post-delivery trading (PSA) will largely cease to be an option for correcting balance group deviations at a later date. As the barriers to entry for direct trading on the stock exchange are still quite high, Alpiq wants to provide a customer-friendly solution. Through this solution, Alpiq is also contributing to the better integration of solar power, thereby supporting the successful transformation of the energy system.
What are the benefits of the new platform?
Damien Muller: When developing the platform, it was important for us to create a solution with a low entry threshold and high user-friendliness – and we have managed to do this. All the customer needs is a customised user account and they can start trading straight away.
The platform shows customers hourly and quarterly prices for purchasing and selling, and customers can trade them at the click of a button. The standard size for a trade is 10 MW, but it can be reduced to up to 1 MW on a flexible basis.
How are the prices that the customer sees on the platform calculated?
Damien Muller: That's the interesting question. Our aim is to be able to offer our customers attractive prices at all times. We do this by drawing on our 24/7 intraday trading desk, intraday market prices in Switzerland and neighbouring countries with good liquidity – including their available cross-border capacities – and our own power plantss.
With regard to pricing, however, we should state in no uncertain terms at this point that low liquidity, particularly in Swiss intraday trading shortly before delivery, is currently a classic chicken-and-egg problem. The more liquidity that can be obtained through short-term intraday trading, the more attractive the prices become. Through our intraday platform, our aim is to contribute to this by significantly reducing the barriers to effective intraday trading.
We want to drive solutions instead of constantly talking about the challenges in intraday trading in Switzerland. At some point, you simply have to take the first step – and that’s exactly what we’re doing now.
You refer to a platform. Does this mean the participants can also trade among themselves?
Holger Feser: There is no provision for direct trading between customers – every trade is concluded between the customer and Alpiq. An OTC trade can created between two partners at the click of a button.
At the same time, however, customers can also place their own orders in addition to the prices displayed on the platform. This makes trading more interactive and dynamic. We’re excited to see how this feature develops – and we’re counting on the active users who will continue to bring the platform to life.
What happens after confirming the trade?
Damien Muller: That is a very important point, and we have focused strongly on finding an efficient, customer-friendly solution. Completed trades can be transferred directly to the customer’s ETRM system via an API interface. There is also an electronic, easy-to-use solution for the confirmation process.
When will the platform become available to customers?
Holger Feser: The official go-live is scheduled for 1 January 2026. However, interested customers can get in touch with us today so they are ready to start when the time comes. The important thing to note is that integration into the Alpiq balance group is not a prerequisite for using our solution. However, in addition to the intraday platform, we are also happy to offer our solution for a sub-balance group under the new price-in model if required.
You can reach us directly at sales@alpiq.com – we’re happy to support you.