[tz] Time zones get in the way of Romanian power trading

[Paul Eggert]

ANRE, the energy regulator in Romania, has an interesting way of trading 
electric power. Its power exchange operates on Central European Time, whereas 
its over-the-counter platform operates on Eastern European Time. This is because 
the power exchange is part of the 4M market (the Czech Republic, Hungary, 
Romania, and Slovakia) which has standardized on CET, whereas the OTC platform 
is based on the local time in Romania.

As a result, a participant who trades a day ahead on the Romanian OTC platform 
can be caught out of balance if they attempt to clear their position on the 
exchange. ANRE says the cost of shifting their OTC platform to CET would exceed 
the benefits of simpler access to the markets. In the meantime, it would seem 
that there are interesting time-zone-based arbitrage opportunities in Romanian 
power trading (or maybe opportunities for anti-arbitrage? :-).

These are all 24-hour markets. Dumb question: why don't they standardize on UTC?


Udubasceanu S. Romanian regulator to maintain time-zone split across power 
trading platforms. ICIS 2015-10-15 
<http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2015/10/15/9933560/romanian-regulator-to-maintain-time-zone-split-across-power-trading-platforms/>