Red Eléctrica de España (REE) and Réseau de Transport d'Électricité (RTE), the transmission system operators of the Spanish and French electrical systems, celebrated yesterday the yearly capacity auction in the Spanish-French Interconnection for the year 2012. In these auctions the entitled participants can obtain, through their admitted bids, the right of use of cross-border exchange capacity for each hour of the year, except in those periods with reduced capacity caused by planned outages.

In the direction France-Spain were offered and allocated 300 MW with a resulting price of 5.52 €/MW, having obtained cross-border capacity rights 8 of total of 14 participants. In the Spain-France direction were offered and allocated 200 MW, resulting a price of 4.47 €/MW and having obtained cross-border capacity rights 8 of total of 17 participants. For the first time from the yearly capacity auctions implementation, six years ago, the price in the France-Spain direction has resulted higher than the price in the Spain-France direction.

These yearly auctions for 2012, carried out in accordance with the European Regulation for cross-border trade, have generated incomes of 20.4 million euros. Half of these incomes, belonging to the Spanish system, are used to reduce the regulated costs of the Spanish electrical system.