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Coping with area price risk in electricity markets: Forecasting Contracts for Difference in the Nordic power market

Contracts for Difference (CfDs) are forwards on the spread between an area price and the system price. Together with the system price forwards, these products are used to hedge the area price risk in the Nordic electricity market. The CfDs are typically available for the next two months, three quarters and three years. This is fine, except that CfDs are not traded at NASDAQ OMX Commodities for every Nord Pool Spot price area. We therefore ask the hypothetical question: What would the CfD market price have been, say in the price area NO2, if it had been traded? We build regression models for each observable price area, and use Bayesian elicitation techniques to obtain prior information on how similar the different price areas are to forecast the price in an area where CfDs are not traded.