ICE Plans to Launch 15 Wind Futures Covering More Than 70% of Europe’s Capacity
Key Facts
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced plans to launch 15 wind futures in 2026, expanding hedging tools in European energy markets to cover renewable generation volume risk. In a statement published via Business Wire, the company said the contracts would be cash-settled and based on wind generation indices published by ENWEX GmbH. The contracts will cover 7 European countries, which together represent more than 70% of Europe’s total installed wind generation capacity, according to ICE. Products will cover onshore wind, offshore wind or a combination of both, depending on the country. The announcement focuses on managing exposure to changes in wind generation volumes alongside electricity price risk, risks ICE says its customers want to address within their existing energy market activity.
Combined with ICE’s European electricity contracts, the futures will allow wind producers, utilities, suppliers and power buyers under power purchase agreements to manage generation volume risk and electricity price risk. This means the proposed hedge covers not only the price at which electricity is sold, but also the possibility that actual output differs from the volume an entity needs or has agreed to buy. ICE said the products were designed to work alongside what customers already trade in its markets. The contracts’ published-index basis provides a benchmark for measuring wind generation for the products covered in each country. Gordon Bennett, ICE’s managing director of utility markets, said, "Wind volume has become an important part of the power sector, and customers want a way to manage this exposure alongside what they already trade with us."
Bennett linked wind risk to the gas and electricity markets, explaining that the amount of wind generated affects how much electricity must be generated with gas. He said wind futures give customers a way to manage exposures linked to wind, gas, electricity and carbon. This connection places wind generation within a chain of energy markets, as changes in renewable generation can alter the need for gas-fired generation, while parties remain exposed to movements in electricity and carbon prices. ICE’s description of the instrument therefore targets the management of a set of exposures that intersect across these markets. This use complements the hedging of generation volume and electricity price risks that the company identified for utilities, producers, suppliers and power buyers.
Robin Girmes, managing director at ENWEX, said transparent, standardized and independently calculated indices help make renewable energy generation risk measurable, tradable and hedgeable. He said this need is particularly evident in the "expanding market for renewable power purchase agreements." The indices published by ENWEX provide the basis for the 15 contracts, according to ICE’s statement, while each contract’s coverage varies by country across onshore wind, offshore wind or both. The company’s statement places the contracts within the expansion of its energy markets into contracts linked to weather variables. The information provided in the statement did not specify a more precise date than the planned launch during 2026.
WindEurope data show that Europe installed 19.1 gigawatts of new wind capacity during 2025, including 15.1 gigawatts in the European Union, bringing the continent’s installed capacity to 304 gigawatts at year-end. These figures provide context for the size of the sector targeted by the contracts, while ICE says the 7 covered countries account for more than 70% of Europe’s installed capacity. The figures do not compare performance among the covered countries or specify how capacity is distributed between them, but they place the announced contract coverage in the context of the European wind market. WindEurope forecasts that Europe could add 151 gigawatts of wind capacity between 2026 and 2030. If that happens, total capacity would reach 439 gigawatts by 2030.