The power exchange Nord Pool Spot, consisting of Nord Pool Spot AS and its wholly owned subsidiary Nord Pool Finland Oy & Nord Pool Spot AB plus the 50% owned subsidiary Nord Pool Gas A/S, organizes the physical trade of electricity, the day-ahead market Elspot in the Nordic countries and KONTEK in Germany (the TSO area of Vattenfall Europe Transmission GmbH). In addition, Nord Pool Spot operates the intra day market Elbas in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Nord Pool Spot is a part of the Nord Pool Group and is owned by the Nordic Transmission System Operators: Statnett SF, Svenska Kraftnät, Fingrid Oyj and Energinet.dk.

Nord Pool Spot provides a market place to producers, distributors, industrial companies, energy companies, trading representatives, large consumers and TSOs on which they can buy or sell physical power. Nord Pool Spot is the central counter party in all trades guaranteeing settlement for trade and anonymity for participants.

As of September 2008, 325 participants trade on the Nord Pool Spot markets daily. Traded volumes through Nord Pool Spot in 2007 amounted to 290,6 TWh in Elspot (249,8 TWh in 2006) and 1,6 TWh in Elbas (1,1 TWh in 2006) . This equals more than 69% of the total consumption of electricity in the Nordic countries.

Nord Pool Spot’s system price is the reference price for futures, forwards and options contracts traded on the exchange with Nord Pool ASA. The system price is also the reference price for the Nordic OTC/bilateral wholesale market and is used as reference for prices given by distributors to the end consumers as well.

Nord Pool Spot has NVE (Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate) as regulatory authority. NVE also issues Nord Pool Spot's market place concession. OED (the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy) allows Nord Pool Spot to organise the physical exchange of power with neighbouring countries.