Spain's National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) recently fined Spanish renewable energy company Gesternova €6 million for manipulating the electricity market between Jan. 1 and March 17, 2022.
The CNMC launched an investigation in March 2022 following a request from Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE), which found that Gesternova scheduled 64,127.4 MWh of PV power sales at night. REE also discovered that much of this power was later sold at a lower price in the market.
In 6% of the analyzed night hours, the sales offers reached the marginal price resulting from the matching of offers. REE identified Gesternova as responsible for 92.7% of these nocturnal PV offers.
The CNMC ruling said that Gesternova made offers with abnormal values, selling energy that was unavailable at night because the company lacked storage systems to shift energy production to those hours.
It found that Gesternova’s financial gains from the manipulation exceeded the maximum fine for serious infringements. It cited an economic benefit of €6.2 million from the price difference between daily market sales and intraday repurchases.
Along with the fine, the CNMC instructed Gesternova to identify and compensate the agents displaced by its manipulation and asked REE to estimate the unit cost for scheduling reserve units. REE must also determine how many units were scheduled due to Gesternova’s actions and ensure that offers without storage systems are not scheduled for nighttime matching.
Gesternova has claimed that its actions were lawful, normal, and in line with European Union laws, which encourage market participants to maximize opportunities.
