
Kanden Energy Solutions (Kenes), a ‘new power retailer’ wholly-owned by Kansai Electric Power Company, has plans to start trading power futures on the European Energy Exchange (EEX), The Nikkei reported on August 13, 2024.
According to the report, Kenes already joined the exchange and is expected to start trading within this year. While the company has been trading power futures on Tokyo Commodity Exchange (TOCOM), the other of the two exchanges where Japan power futures can be traded, it decided to join EEX due to its higher liquidity.
Both EEX and TOCOM saw a surge in traded volume in the first half of this year. However, the overall volume of Japan power futures traded on EEX is significantly higher than the volume on TOCOM. While 28.9TWh was traded on EEX in H1 2024, only 978GWh was traded on TOCOM in the entire year of 2023.
Having retailed 275GWh of power in April 2024, Kenes is the 10th largest ‘new retailer.’ As such, its participation in futures trading on EEX can be expected to provide an important liquidity boost to the exchange.