In zonal electricity markets, such as Europe's, system operators relieve congested power lines within bidding zones using out-of-market measures. One such measure is "redispatching" power plants, i.e. increasing the output of one power station while decreasing the output of another....

The question of third-party access to the networks has become central to the debate around the liberalisation of the European electricity markets due to the natural monopoly characteristic of the transmission network. The European Union's electricity directive provides three institutional...