Recent changes in the German energy policy initiated a deregulation process from a monopolistic to a competitive market, fundamentally
changing the market structure, transaction relationships and trading processes. While the mutual exchange of electric energy
has been a business activity between vertically integrated utilities for a long time, wholesale electricity trading in an
open market only recently started to gain momentum. Electricity becomes a commodity traded at power exchanges and off-exchange
on over the counter (OTC) markets. In Germany, the wholesale electricity market is dominated by OTC trading. Trading in OTC
markets is usually performed via telephone and facsimile which leads to a limited price transparency, a limited liquidity,
an ex ante restricted number of potential market partners and, last but not least, substantial transaction costs. Market participants
are therefore searching for new trading mechanisms to circumvent the problems of the current trading processes. The electronization
of trading activities promises to reduce the disadvantages of current OTC trading processes through the automation of tasks
within the transaction chain. In this context, electronic markets for electricity trading are coordination mechanisms for
the market exchange of electricity and electricity derivatives, i. e., a virtual market place where supply and demand meet
and trade. An important feature of electronic markets is an automated dynamic pricing which is currently not supported by
electronic markets available for electricity trading in the German wholesale market. A concept for an Electronic Electricity
Trading System is therefore proposed with a main focus on automated price discovery.
The research presented in this paper is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under project no. WE 1436/4-1.
We would like to thank the four anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions and helpful comments. The authors are responsible
for all remaining deficiencies.