European power markets: 3 ways to trade smarter

Today’s fast-moving European power markets are influenced by an increasingly complex range of factors. To stay ahead of the curve, market participants need access to the most accurate, up-to-date data possible.  

In a recent webinar, we turned the spotlight on how Wood Mackenzie’s constantly evolving range of proprietary trading analytics solutions can give you the edge in European power market trading. Fill out the form at the top of the page to access the full webinar presentation – or read on for a quick overview of three key factors that can power more effective trading. 

1. The power of proprietary data 

For day-ahead and intraday power trading, access to the most up-to-the minute data is essential. Wood Mackenzie currently has more than 6000 proprietary sensors worldwide, and has been installing sensors in Europe since 2003. These units are installed in the proximity of power lines, where they can monitor what’s happening in real time.  

Data from our sensors all over Europe is transmitted directly into our database, where it’s processed and translated into megawatt (MW) values that are displayed on our Power RT platform in real time. Below is a comparison between our proprietary data and publicly available data from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) for Lippendorf, a large coal-fired power plant in the Saxony region of Germany, from 16 to 23 April 2025. As you can see, the real-time data from our sensors (shown in blue) is literally five days ahead of the public data (shown in green). 

The advantages of Power RT don’t end there, however. Our sensors cover power plants below 100 MW, which are not included in public data, as well as major interconnectors – the physical lines that transport power both within a country and across borders. They can also provide insight into major consumers of power such as data centres, which are having an increasing impact on power market dynamic. 

2. The power of intraday prediction 

Electricity can be traded for delivery on the same day, either continuously or within intraday auctions. As well as trading within countries and price zones, cross-zonal trading, known as XBID trading, is possible. The biggest and most liquid intraday trading platform is the European Power Exchange (EPEX). 

Intraday trading is highly data-intensive, with a large number of trades per product and an irregular but generally very high frequency of transactions. The orderbook is continuously changing, with new entries and modifications, as well as ‘iceberg’ orders (whereby a large buy or sell order is broken down into smaller, less visible increments) and market depth needing to be taken into account. To trade effectively, a rapid response to any new information is essential. 

The key dilemma for intraday traders is always “do I go short or long?”. At the same time, there is the important question of timing in terms of when to open and close a position, as well as the need to constantly adjust open positions. Wood Mackenzie’s Intraday Price Predict product is specifically designed for continuous intraday trading on EPEX, providing traders with a constant flow of high-quality data – that's updated every minute. This data can be used to compare forecasted prices with the current orderbook mid-price, evaluate when to open or close a position, or generate alerts.  

3. The power of simulation 

For day-ahead trading and longer-term strategies, the ability to model power markets in the same way as market operators is invaluable. To address this need, Wood Mackenzie developed its European Power Systems Insights (EPSI) solution. 

EPSI is a market-clearing simulation model that replicates the methodologies used by market operators to calculate electricity prices and dispatch outcomes. It makes it possible to easily forecast day-ahead, week-ahead and months-ahead prices and generation across different integrated European power markets.  

EPSI is a fundamental model that contains a logic element as well as two main databases. The unit database contains information on 3,500 power plants across 32 European countries. The other database element is EPSI store, which aggregates all the required inputs you need to power your model, whether your own, Wood Mackenzie, public or third-party data. Data included by default includes wind and solar production, market prices, fuel prices and plant availabilities and daily matrices represent transmission system congestions.  

With these inputs, EPSI can create a fundamental model of the required market and use it to calculate units’ short-run marginal costs (SRMC) and decide final bids. Based on these final bids, units compete within the model and the final dispatch of each unit is decided.  

As well as prices and dispatch, EPSI can provide the merit order for different generating technologies for each hour as well as the technology at the margin, making it possible to see how this has affected the market price.   

EPSI also offers additional features, including sensitivity analysis, and recent market policies like modelling of flow-based market coupling and allocation constraints.  

Learn more 

Remember to fill in the form at the top of the page to download the full webinar presentation, in which our Power RT, Intraday Price Predict and EPSI experts explain these solutions in more detail.