Recently, the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), whose members are the national energy regulatory authorities in Europe, published a “Status Review on Regulatory Approaches to Enabling Smart Grid Solutions”. The CEER compiled the report through a survey of the national regulatory authorities. It reviews the ways in which different European countries approach the development of smart grids and the regulatory challenges faced by each.
The report is not prescriptive—it gives no policy recommendations—but rather it is a reflection of what the regulators see as the main (regulatory) issues surrounding the development of smart grids in their countries. The report addresses who the major actors in smart grids development will be, the encouragement of innovative solutions as well as performance indicators and incentive schemes for regulating network output.
The survey results indicate that according to almost all of the regulators, distribution system operators (DSOs) play a major role in smart grid development. This may seem self-evident to Landis+Gyr and our customers, but given the discussions in the European Commission’s Smart Grids Task Force, it is a matter worth mentioning. Additionally, the majority of regulators also see technology providers, such as Landis+Gyr, as well as governments and electricity suppliers as playing major roles as well.
Beyond this consensus, there is a wide spectrum of opinions reflected in the report. For example, there is no clear consensus on the existence of regulatory and commercial barriers to the development of smart grids. To this point, there is no agreement that existing rules will not hinder smart grid development, however, in general, national regulators believe that current unbundling rules are not likely to hinder smart grid development.
Regarding metering, most countries’ net metering, the deduction of energy outflows from metered energy inflows, is either already in place or planned, and almost three quarters of the regulators said that smart grids will use smart metering data.
However, in the end, 73 percent of the countries surveyed are of the opinion that new commercial and regulatory arrangements will be necessary in order to facilitate the development of smart grids.
To access the full report click HERE.
