Meet Marcus Bokermann of Vattenfall’s Business Area Markets, new Chairman for EFET, European Federation of Energy Traders.
About EFET
The European Federation of Energy Traders promotes competition, transparency and open access in the European energy sector. It has 140 members from all across Europe: utilities, trading houses, municipal utilities, retailers, larger industrial players, gas & oil companies, banks.
The aim is to maintain the functionality and good design of European gas, electricity and associated markets for the benefit of the overall economy, society and end consumers. EFET is elaborating and promoting wholesale market design improvements and taking policy initiatives, for discussion between traders, market operators and others in the energy value chain on the one hand and TSOs, regulators, policy makers, and legislators on the other. Furthermore, developing and maintaining standard wholesale contracts and standardising related transaction and business processes are key services of the association. All this is done to ultimately underpin a sustainable, efficient and secure energy supply and to enable the transition to a carbon neutral economy.
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Marcus Bokermann, new Chairman of the European Federation of Energy Traders
In November, the European Federation of Energy Traders has appointed Marcus Bokermann as their new Chairman. With that, Marcus Bokermann has become Vattenfall’s first representative ever to chair Europe’s main association for energy traders. In his daily job, Marcus oversees Vattenfall power trading activities in Continental Europe.
Why is it important for Vattenfall to be active in this Federation?
EFET is working on and promoting improvements of the wholesale energy markets in Europe and the way these markets are designed are of high importance for Vattenfall. The market design defines to what extent we can optimise Vattenfall’s generation and sales portfolios but also how the transition to a carbon neutral economy can be orchestrated efficiently through market based mechanisms.
Vattenfall’s purpose is to enable fossil-free living in one generation, while we in BA Markets have the ambition to act as Vattenfall´s stable and future proof market hub with strong regulatory foresight. From a Trading perspective, EFET is the most effective and focused association in the regulatory field.
How is EFET driving the energy transition?
The work of EFET is all about making energy markets more efficient while achieving the overall goals, a sustainable and secure energy supply and to enable the transition to a carbon neutral economy. In the end, the better we can integrate renewables and decentral assets into the market, the lower the costs for the overall society in this transition will be. This February EFET published the study “Gas decarbonization and sector coupling – ensuring a market-based approach” with Frontier Economics to drive discussions.
One other good example is the job that we have done in EFET when pushing for the roll-out of electricity market coupling beyond the Day-Ahead timeframe. With the share of renewable energy sources rising and given that national electricity markets are well connected, it becomes more important that we are able to trade the markets close to real time across borders. By implementing market coupling also for intraday markets, the renewables volumes can now be managed more properly than before across most of Western Europe,
When did you start your career in EFET and why?
Actually I started almost ten years ago participating in the Electricity Committee. As I’m passionate about the energy sector and believe in markets, EFET was a natural match . For me EFET is one of the most effective associations and by being engaged, you can have an impact. Other things I like is that it gives you the opportunity broaden your network and cultivate to take on a lot of different perspectives, quite a useful trait.