Ruling on illegal energy price deals stands

A group of Danish combined heat and power plants violated competition rules by coordinating their bids at electricity price auctions, leading to artificially inflated prices, according to Denmark’s Competition Appeals Committee. This verdict comes one year after the Competition Council reached the same conclusion. These actions, involving eight power plants and the company Effekthandel, resulted in shared earnings among the plants regardless of auction outcomes, from September 2019 to at least August 2022. According to Energinet’s estimates, this price-fixing led to prices rising to DKK 68 per megawatt, where the normal price was about DKK 5 per megawatt, costing Energinet alone an extra DKK 22 million in 2020. The case encompasses 49 power plants, with 41 appealing the Council’s decision. Industry organization Dansk Fjernvarme expressed surprise at the ruling, noting that the involved entities, owned by the community customers, sought guidance from authorities but received no clear direction on the pricing model’s legitimacy.