Market design consultation & retail communication: Future-proof the market design and clean up customers’ bills, says EURELECTRIC

News Article

EURELECTRIC today responds to the European Commission’s consultation on energy market design and issues views regarding the communication on delivering a new deal for energy consumers.

In its response to the market design consultation, EURELECTRIC calls for a future-proof market design, with energy and flexibility markets free of distortive interventions, well-designed capacity markets where needed, and a proper speeding up of European energy market integration across all timeframes. “For many years, we have called to move away from national mind-sets. It is high-time that we move towards regional markets and we should use the momentum of the Energy Union to do so. What we need is a strong ACER with a strong European mind-set and a plan to move towards regional system operation”, says Secretary-General Hans ten Berge.

Energy-only markets remain the reference for the completion of the internal energy market, but where needed to ensure the expected level of security of supply, EURELECTRIC recognises that well-designed capacity markets are an integral part of a future market design. Their implementation must be based on regional adequacy assessments and allow for cross-border participation.

EURELECTRIC reiterates that the EU ETS should become the main instrument that drives investment in low-carbon technologies in the power sector. The EU-ETS provides the best means to achieve a well-coordinated approach among Member States and develops a market-based and coherent policy on RES development in the EU.

Commenting on the new deal for energy consumers, EURELECTRIC urges policy-makers once again to phase out price regulation and make taxes, levies and policy support costs less of a burden on the final electricity bill. “Achieving this requires the European Commission to launch an open debate with national governments and regulators alike. This is a matter of urgency if we are serious about delivering the new deal for energy consumers”, says Hans ten Berge.

EURELECTRIC supports competitive and innovative downstream markets. Sound market rules should ensure a level playing field for demand-side response, underpin the cost-efficient deployment of distributed generation and allow the development of innovative services. In the same way, new players such as price comparison and switching websites should be subject to proper regulatory oversight to avoid any detrimental impact on customer engagement. As for DSOs, they will have an increasingly important role as active system managers, technological enablers and neutral market facilitators.

All these key market design issues will be further discussed today, during the Florence Forum.

EURELECTRIC's response to the energy market design consultation is available here and the views on the new deal for energy consumers can be found here