London, 3rd October 2023 – BritNed, the pioneering High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnector linking the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, has officially ushered in a new era of energy trading with the launch of Empire, the world's first fully-integrated interconnector platform.

With the support of Supercharge, BritNed has replaced three legacy systems with a meticulously designed modern interface. Empire is poised to deliver unparalleled levels of performance and productivity within the interconnector sector, and will enable easier and new trading possibilities for BritNed's participants.

As a result of the partnership, BritNed will soon launch the world’s first Buy Now Auction, offering both Day Ahead and Intraday capacity after the allocation period has closed, providing more flexibility for its customers.

Over the first 10 days of its operation Empire has allocated 892GW of Day Ahead and Intraday capacity with a total Allocation Revenue of €4.4M, and 369MW of Long Term capacity for over €1.8M. The total Flow that was instructed by Empire was 184GWh which is equivalent to powering approximately 8,000 households every single hour.


The challenge

BritNed operates the 1 gigawatt HVDC interconnector between Great Britain and the Netherlands, which provides an essential connection between the electricity grids of the two countries. The high-voltage cable allows over 70 participating organisations to trade power between the two markets. To fully utilise the capacity of the interconnector and ensure safe operations, sophisticated orchestration is necessary for capacity allocation, transfer fulfilment, and financial settlements.

BritNed had previously been using multiple platforms to run Long Term, Day Ahead and Intraday auctions, manage nominations, and control energy flow. 

BritNed’s ambition was to move to a single platform to ensure that it could deliver an unprecedented level of performance and productivity in the interconnector industry. Its team is dedicated to innovation and aimed to develop a solution that prioritises the needs of its clients and employees, specifically tailored to their sophisticated operations and workflows.