Japan Power Summit 2024

The European Energy Exchange(EEX) and Tokyo Commodity Exchange(TOCOM) held “Japan Power Summit 2024”in Tokyo on October 23.

About 550 of electricity stakeholders and exchange personnel from domestic and overseas gathered at Otemachi Sankei Plaza(1－7－2，Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) and　about 200 people seemed to watch the event online. EEX and TOCOM first co-hosted the event in 2023 and about 300 people gathered for it at that time, so the number of participants this year almost doubled.

TOCOM has started electricity futures transaction in September 2019 and EEX has handled Japanese electricity futures transaction since May 2020. EEX is an energy exchange which has a trading base in Europe and is affiliated with Deutsche Börse Group.

The event started at 1:30pm, and at first, the president of TOCOM, Takashi Ishizaki and the chief operating officer, Stephan Cooler gave the opening address. After that, the director of commodity market office, commerce and service policy group, commerce and information policy bureau, ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Tomoyuki Fueki mentioned “Needless to say, electricity is a product which has a huge impact on people’s lives and corporate activities. Therefore, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the tense situation in the Middle East, etc. , volatility in electricity prices and crude oil prices is increasing” and appealed the importance of risk management.

After that, the president of The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, Tatsuya Terazawa gave a keynote speech on “Regarding electricity futures trading in future in Japan”．Next, the managing executive officer and the chief of generation company of Tohoku Electric Power, Kaoru Hijikata gave a keynote speech on “What we want from the Japanese electricity market－for further expansion”．

Then, a panel discussion was held, and after the end of the first half of the event, a 20 minute coffee break was taken.

After the break, the director and the managing executive officer of TOCOM, Akira Tagaya gave a presentation to introduce TOCOM’s electricity futures market. Successively, the second half of the panel discussion was held, and a party was held at the venue from 6pm. 550 participants were divided into the main venue with 400 people and the separate venue with 150 people. English was spoken everywhere, so much so that the proportion of foreigners was thought to be over 50 percent. According to what our reporter heard from an officer of eREX, a renewable energy supplier, the number of participants at the summit which was first held in 2019 was only about 20 people. After that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the in-person event was canceled. However, this year, it was so prosperous that 550 people participated in the event, so there was a high level of expectation and interest in electricity futures trading.

（Futures Tribune・issued October 29, 2024 ・no.3321）