Invitation to the 7th MCCG meeting
Algorithm Methodology change approved by ACER
New OKTE, a.s. Operation Order (effective from November 1st 2024)

FAQ

General questions

General questions

REMIT (Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency) is Regulation No 1227/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on wholesale energy market integrity and transparency and Commission Implementing Regulation No 1348/2014 that require the wholesale market participants to provide Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) with data about contracts on the wholesale energy markets including orders to trade.


This regulation and its implementing regulation also refer to Commission Regulation (EU) No 543/2013 on submission and publication of data in electricity markets and Regulation (EC)of the European Parliament and of the Council No 715/2009 on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks.


According to REMIT, the contracts are transactions admitted to trading on organized markets and bilateral contracts for physical delivery of electricity or natural gas, their derivatives, transactions related to transmission or transportation capacities and provision of ancillary or balancing services.

The goal of REMIT is to ensure that consumers and others market participants can have trust in the integrity of the electricity and natural gas markets, that prices determined in wholesale energy markets reflect fair and competitive mutual interactions between supply and demand, and that by market misuse profit shall not be gained.

Increasing of integrity and transparency in wholesale energy markets will support creating open and fair competition in the wholesale energy markets, which end customers will benefit from.

REMIT has a form of EU Regulation and therefore it is directly applicable and does not have to be additionally implemented into national legislation. However, area of sanctions and fines is left within national scope and is governed by §36 of the Act 250/2012 Coll. on Regulation in network industries.

Market participant is every subject, which executes transactions on one or more wholesale energy markets. Market participants are especially:

  • Operators of transmission and transportation networks,
  • Electricity and natural gas traders,
  • Electricity producers with more than 10 MW of installed production capacity,
  • Natural gas producers with more than 20 MW of production capacity in one facility,
  • Electricity or natural gas consumption units with capacity consumption exceeding 600 GWh at full capacity utilization.

According to the Implementing Regulation on REMIT, if market participant asks organized market for reporting service of all orders to trade, respectively transactions realized on this market, this service has to be provided. For such a service fee can be charged.

CEREMP is a Centralised European Register of Energy Market Participants, a database of ACER . All market participants defined by REMIT have an obligation to register into this database via national regulatory authority. Instructions for registration of market participants to ACER database are on the website of Regulatory Office for Network Industries

(ÚRSO): http://www.urso.gov.sk/?q=node/339&language=en

Mandatory reported contracts are according to REMIT divided into standard and non-standard contracts.

Standard contracts are orders to trade in wholesale products and transactions realized on organized markets, to which also ISOT platform maintained by OKTE, a.s. counts. Standard contracts must be reported to ACER by next working day after the placement of orders to trade, conclusion or change of the transaction.

Market participants are obliged to report standard contracts from 7th of October, 2015 on. Non-standard contracts are all contracts related to wholesale contracts, which are not standard contracts. Nonstandard contracts are above all bilateral contracts (Over-the Counter, OTC) concluded between participants in wholesale market. Non-standard contracts must be reported by one month after conclusion or change of the transaction.

Market participants are obliged to report non-standard contracts from 7th of April, 2016 on. Contracts, which have been concluded before the beginning of the effective date of the reporting obligations (7.10.2015 resp. 7.4.2016) and for which reporting obligation is applicable, have to be reported to ACER within 90 days after the effectiveness date of the reporting duty for the respective type of contracts.

Yes, according to the Article 5 of Implementing Regulation No 1348/2014, it is necessary to report also orders to trade realized on organised market. Specifics of auction markets, among which also organised short-term cross-border market by OKTE, a.s. counts, are defined by article 7, paragraph 2 of this regulation, which implies that only concluded contracts and final orders to trade shall be reported.

In line with the article 4 of the Implementing Regulation of REMIT, following contracts do not have to be regularly reported:

  • Intercompany contracts,
  • Contracts on physical delivery of electricity produces by one unit with capacity of maximum 10 MW or multiple combined units with capacity of maximum 10 MW,
  • Contracts on physical delivery of natural gas produced by one facility with capacity of maximum 20 MW,
  • Contracts for balancing services in electricity and natural gas.

Market participants must be able to provide these contracts in requested format upon a request by ACER.

Act No. 250/2012 Coll. on Regulation in network industries sets the amount of fines for administrative violations against REMIT from 500,- EUR to 10 000 000,- EUR.

Role of OKTE as Registered Reporting Mechanism (RRM)

Role of OKTE as Registered Reporting Mechanism (RRM)

No, but every organised market place (OMP), according to article 6 of the Implementing Regulation of REMIT, has to offer to any market participant upon its request the service of data reporting to ACER. This obligation can be delegated by OMP to a selected RRM subject.

OKTE, a.s. has to fulfil several demanding technical, security and organisational requirements in the areas of data quality, operations, management, administration and communication. Compliance with requirements is certified by ACER within the process of registration and confirmed by testing of communication with ACER information system.

OKTE, a.s. successfully finalized its registration as RRM in ACER on 20 August 2015.

OKTE, a.s. is registered by ACER for reporting of transactions realized on its own organized short-term electricity market (ISOT platform) as well as for arranging the reporting of orders to trade and realized transactions placed on and prepared by other organized market place (OOMP), bilateral contracts (so called Over-The-Counter, OTC), and final nominations of transmission system operators.

Registration is valid for an indefinite period of time. Every two years, audit of compliance with technical requirements related to RRM role is required by ACER.

Complete list of all RRMs may be found here: https://www.acer-remit.eu/portal/list-of-rrm

Market participant may utilize services of multiple RRMs. Contract on data reporting should include information on duration and possibility of termination of the contract.

Market participant active on the organised short-term electricity market who intends to report trade orders and transactions realized on ISOT via OKTE, a.s. as RRM should conclude the following:

  • Amendment to the Agreement on the Access to and the Conditions for Participation in the Organized Short-Term cross-border Electricity Market,
  • Agreement on Transaction Reporting Realized in the Organized Short-Term Cross-Border Electricity Market.

No. Market participant who intends to report transactions realized outside of ISOT platform needs according to the OKTE, a.s. Operation Order to conclude with OKTE, a.s. only Agreement on supply of data for performing the data reporting according to REMIT and Implementing Regulation (hereinafter referred to as "REMIT Contract").

The fee for this service is included in the fees for the activities of organising and evaluating the short-term electricity market, which are regulated by Regulatory Office for Network Industries (ÚRSO).

This service will be charged on commercial basis. Price list for this service will be published after completed registration of OKTE, a.s. as an RRM. These fees will be invoiced on monthly basis.

The fee for RRM services for concluded contracts and final orders realized via ISOT platform is part of the fee for organisation of short-term electricity market, which is set by price decision published by Regulatory Office for Network Industries.

The fee for reporting of non-standard contracts (mainly OTC) is published in a Price list.

OKTE, a.s. enables it to a market participant on the ISOT platform to export data about orders to trade and transactions concluded in ISOT in a specific format that is required by ACER. Market participant can perform data export and report them to ACER via another RRM.

The precondition to this is the signing of an Amendment to the Agreement on the Access to and the Conditions for Participation in the Organized Short-Term cross-border Electricity Market. Access to data will be enabled based on the request by market participant trading on the ISOT platform that will be attached to the distributed amendment. In the next step user account with access to the RRM OKTE, a.s. system will be created.

ACER will collect transaction data, analyse and interpret them. After initial evaluation ACER will report to national regulatory bodies well-founded suspicion about conduct that may raise manipulation concerns.

OKTE is aware of the fact that RRM role entails continuous fulfilment of strict technical, organizational, and security requirements specified by ACER. Hence OKTE, a.s. regularly reviews effectiveness of its processes.

In addition, OKTE regularly assesses key procedures and standards and updates strategic documents such as risk analysis or business continuity plan. OKTE, a.s. plans to annually carry out audit of compliance with ACER requirements.

Technical questions

Technical questions

Technical specification of external interfaces and user guide is available on the website of OKTE, a.s.

The unique identifier of orders to trade and transactions is an exclusive identification of transaction that is agreed between counterparties in accordance with ACER requirements based on REMIT.

For the market participant on the ISOT platform the UTI will be generated by RRM OKTE, a.s. automatically.

For the identification of non-standard contracts (mainly bilateral - OTC transactions) ACER is developing an algorithm which will enable market participants to generate the same UTI of the bilateral trade without any communication between the two market participants. More info on ACER REMIT website: https://www.acer.europa.eu/remit-documents

Prior to the start of the reporting of transactions realized on ISOT platform, market participant needs to conclude an Amendment to the Agreement on the Access to and the Conditions for Participation in the Organized Short-Term cross-border Electricity Market. Reporting will be automated, hence no further collaboration from the market participant will be needed.

Prior to the reporting of non-standard contracts (mainly bilateral - OTC transactions), market participant needs to conclude REMIT Contract with OKTE, a.s. The reporting of transactions concluded outside of the ISOT platform will take place after the upload of data into the OKTE, a.s. by a market participant.

No, OKTE, a.s. controls only formal correctness of the reported data on the basis of specific format requirements by ACER.

If a mistake is identified by a formal check by RRM in the system of OKTE, a.s., the transaction will be returned to the market participant for correction. If the error is identified from the side of ACER, the transaction reporting transmission will be refused. Factual or content error may not be discovered by these controls.

After the identifaction of a mistake, the market participant is obliged to report correction of the respective transaction.

Transfer of the data will be secured via encryption in case of both the transfer from OKTE, a.s. to ACER and the transfer from market participant to OKTE, a.s.

Prior to generation and sending of transaction report to ACER Information System (ARIS), the data will be stored in a dedicated database separated  from commercial systems of OKTE, a.s.

OKTE, a.s. will perform formal validation of input data against the RRM scheme defined by ACER and content validation against market participant identification via ACER Code or EIC code.
The accuracy and completeness of the data will be checked for consistency of numerical fields against .xsd schemes.

Reporting of data for market participants trading on the ISOT platform will not require any authentication for data reception as the data will be processed within OKTE, a.s. Information System. For the communication with these market participants, OKTE will use a web portal authenticating users through name/password and digital certificate, which must be issued by a Certification Authority accepted by OKTE, a.s. The list of accepted certification authorities is available HERE.

For reporting of non-standard contracts (mainly bilateral - OTC contracts) RRM OKTE, a.s. will additionally require authentication via the https protocol and web server certificate. Should the data be submitted by a different subject from the market participant, an explicit authorisation will be required.

All market participants will have the possibility to access the reported data and received confirmations via a web portal, where an overview of transactions and their status for each transaction (not sent/sent and accepted/sent and refused) shall be displayed. In the case of unsuccessful data reporting (refused) the market participant will be notified from the side of OKTE, a.s.


For non-standard contracts (mainly bilateral - OTC contracts), communication using web services will also be available.

Yes, for reporting of transactions  the testing of RRM OKTE, a.s. with ACER was performed in the following way:

  • for ISOT participants trial days took place in September 2015
  • for non-standard contracts (mainly bilateral - OTC contracts) testing phase and trial days took place in February and March 2016.

Exact information will be available at www.okte.sk.

RRM operator is available for communication of operational matters on remit@okte.sk.

Data will be backed up on monthly basis and will be archived for the period of 5 years.