The current month is an active one for the country’s industrial sector as major-scale energy consumers prepare for a DEPA (Public Gas Corporation) auction next week, to ensure their gas needs, as well as the next “disruption management” auction, expected late September.

The “disruption management” auctions, introduced earlier this year, offer capacities to major industrial enterprises, enabling them to benefit from electricity cost savings in exchange for shifting energy usage to off-peak hours whenever required by the operator.

The upcoming DEPA auction, covering the year’s fourth quarter and scheduled for September 13, will offer a natural gas amount of 310,815.258 MWh in 50,000 units, each measuring 6.216 MWh. Participants need to have settled outtanding debt or made payback arrangements. The DEPA gas auctions are included in the list of gas market bailout requirements.

The “disruption management” auction, staged by IPTO, the power grid operator, is scheduled for September 26. The previous session, covering May 1 to September 30, was held in late April.

To date, three “disruption management” auctions have been staged since the measure’s late-February launch. A second session was held in late March and a third in May.

The measure has proven effective to date as many industrial enterprises have been able to offer “disruption management” services to the country’s grid, reducing their energy costs.

Virtually all of the market’s main players took part in the previous auction. The auction prices reached 47,600 MW for short-term services and 48,600 MW for long-term services.