Publication date: June 9, 2025 New Rules on Bidding Price in the Balancing Market

New Rules on Bidding Price in the Balancing Market

The Electricity and Gas Market Surveillance Commission, a body under the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, established to monitor markets and promote fair competition, will now require bidders in the balancing market (需給調整市場) to register a one-time startup cost. Although the guidelines state that only one instance of startup cost may be reflected in the delta-kilowatt bid price, it was found that some operators had accounted for more than that. To identify such cases at an early stage, all operators will be required to register the one-time startup cost. This requirement will be explicitly stated in the guidelines for the balancing market in the future, but operators are expected to comply without waiting for the revision.

Expanded Compliance After Misreporting Incident

This proposal was made and approved by the Secretariat at the Market Design and Monitoring Expert Meeting this month. Following the March guideline revision, omitted startup costs (not reflected in bid price) are to be settled after the bidding between the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and power generation operators. In line with this, it has been stipulated that only one instance of startup cost can be reflected in the bid price.

However, it turned out that one operator, unaware of this operational change, had included more than one instance of startup cost. As a result, the requirement to register one-time startup costs, which had previously applied only to operators with surplus utilization systems, will now apply to all operators participating in the balancing market system.

___________________________________________________________________________________