EEX

The European Energy Exchange (EEX) is a regulated exchange headquartered in Leipzig, Germany, and majority-owned by Deutsche Boerse Group. It operates markets for electricity futures (German, French, Italian and other national baseloads), natural gas spot and futures, and European Union Allowances (EUAs) under the EU Emissions Trading System. EEX is the primary venue for clearing carbon contracts that underpin the EU ETS price signal, making it central to the economic logic of coal-to-gas switching and renewable investment across the Continent. It also operates Nodal Exchange in North America and EPEX SPOT (the short-term European power exchange) through its group structure.

EEX carbon and power prices are directly relevant to the German clean spark spread, which measures how profitable it is to run a gas-fired plant after paying for fuel and carbon permits. The clean spark spread has been negative in recent weeks, meaning gas plants lose money running at wholesale prices . This negative spread is partly a function of the EEX EUA price: if carbon permits are cheap, the spread improves; if they are expensive relative to gas, gas plants can only break even at elevated power prices. The France-Germany power spread reaching a record EUR 96.20/MWh underlines how national generation mixes create sharp cross-border price differentials that show up in EEX French and German baseload futures.