With the Integrated Electricity Dispatching Code (TIDE), the Italian market has moved from hourly to quarter-hourly periods. What has changed for MGP, intraday markets and operators, and how to prepare to manage 96 prices a day.
The Integrated Text on Electricity Dispatching (TIDE) by ARERA entered its first operational phase on 1 January 2025, marking a historic turning point for the Italian power sector. The reform brings the market to quarter-hourly granularity and overhauls the organisation of auctions and dispatching, with direct effects for operators and consumers.
Updated October 2026. This article was originally published in May 2024, before the reform came into force. We have updated it with the actual start dates of quarter-hourly trading.
The milestones: from hourly to quarter-hourly
- 1 January 2025: operational launch of the TIDE and of 15-minute trading on the intraday auction markets (MI-A).
- 1 October 2025: move to the 15-minute Market Time Unit in the Day-Ahead Market (MGP) too, in coordination with European market coupling (SDAC).
With the quarter-hourly MTU each market day is divided into 96 periods instead of 24: prices, schedules and offers to manage quadruple.
What changes for operators
Producers, traders and supply companies must schedule, bid and measure at 15-minute intervals. They need forecasting and scheduling able to work at the new granularity, and bidding processes that can handle a much higher number of offers without increasing manual work.
The impact on dispatching
The dispatching market adapts to the same granularity: buying and selling quarter-hourly products becomes part of everyday operations, with more dynamic and responsive energy management and more precise balancing between supply and demand.
Benefits for the system and for consumers
More frequent auctions and scheduling help to balance supply and demand better, integrate non-programmable renewables and make costs more transparent: quarter-hourly prices describe more precisely how much energy costs at each moment of the day.
How MAS supports the quarter-hourly market
ERGObid, the ERGO Suite bidding module, manages quarter-hourly and block bids on MGP, MI and XBID in compliance with TIDE, with energy accounts and transactions on PCE and direct submission of bids to IPEX. FAST manages metering data and forecasts of injections and withdrawals at quarter-hourly granularity, reducing volume risk for operators.
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