Volue helps its customers navigate the shift to 15-minute market time units
On 30 September 2025, Europe’s day-ahead auction market underwent one of its most significant changes in recent years: the move from hourly to 15-minute market time units (MTUs). The change, designed to better reflect the volatility of renewable generation, marked an important step towards more dynamic and accurate power markets.
For many market participants, this transition required major updates to systems and processes. For Volue, it was an opportunity to help our customers navigate this new-found complexity with confidence, ensuring they were fully prepared and that operations continued seamlessly from day one.
Taking advantage of new opportunities
Maximilian Kiessler, General Manager, Volue Energy Market Services, explains the scale of the change. He said: “The opportunities 15-minute MTUs will create are substantial and will help to further integrate and standardise European markets, ensuring production and consumption are captured more accurately in an environment increasingly shaped by intermittent renewables.
“While it might sound simple to divide hourly trading into four 15-minute intervals, the shift brought about a significant increase in complexity. It now means four times as much data, and much greater demands on computing power and storage.
“Beyond trading, back-office processes such as reporting and invoicing also must be adapted, as do the underlying IT systems required to support this seamlessly. Since day one, we have successfully transitioned our customers not only in their front-office trading workflows, but also across all back-office operations. We are proud to work in partnership with our customers to help them navigate both this, and future market changes, over the coming years.”
Operational excellence in action
Bård Mageli, Head of Physical Portfolio, Volue Energy Market Services, also reflected on the team’s achievements following the change.
He states: “We successfully submitted bids in the quarterly day-ahead auction market at Nord Pool. This is a major milestone for the market, and a proud moment for our team. For more than a year, we worked tirelessly to prepare for this transition, and thanks to exceptional teamwork and commitment, we delivered.”
Empowering traders with advanced software
On the energy trading side, Felipe Lanza, VP, Trading Software, highlights how Volue’s innovative solutions supported customers throughout the transition.
He explains: “Volue Auction Bidding already includes a range of built-in features that give traders greater control and transparency. These include full bid visualisation, static and dynamic risk limits, safety checks within the interface, easy user modifications, order versioning, and expected volume charts that show the anticipated market result based on selected forecasts.
“With a strong product already in place, customer trades using Volue Auction Bidding were completed smoothly post-transition, with no production issues and with full use-case coverage, something that I am incredibly proud of.”
A milestone for European energy markets
The move to 15-minute MTUs represents far more than a technical update. It is a key milestone on Europe’s journey towards a more responsive, transparent, and resilient energy market. For Volue, it reinforces our role as a trusted partner as we continue to help our customers adapt to market changes, helping them take advantage of new opportunities in the process.