Supplier Trader — End-to-end procurement flow

Supplier trader procurement timeline from weekly purchase through day-ahead, intraday repair, actual demand, and imbalance settlement.

You are a supplier buying electricity for customers. Weather, clouds, and customer activity can change demand forecasts; cross-border or network events change market risk, but they do not change the customer demand plan.

Weekly: lock baseload purchases

Buy a single MW baseload position for the day ahead of time. The customer demand forecast is broad (±30%), and prices are revealed only after you commit.

Day-Ahead: cover each hour

Weather and customer updates sharpen the demand forecast. Buy or sell hourly volumes with ±20% uncertainty.

Intraday: repair the active block

Trade the active block as delivery approaches, with ±10% uncertainty. Forecast-impacting news changes the demand plan; market-only news changes price risk.

Actual demand vs. purchases

Actual customer demand rarely equals what you purchased. The gap is your imbalance exposure for each hour.

Imbalance settlement

Surplus and deficit settle at imbalance prices that depend on whether the system was short or long that hour.