Electricity pylon

The 1,700 electricity and gas network operators will in future be subject to state supervision. The post and telecommunication regulatory authorities (RegTP) will assume extra responsibility for this role under the new title “Federal Regulatory Authority for Electricity, Gas, Post and Telecommunications".

Consumers and their associations will have their rights strengthened and will in future be allowed to play a more active role. 

According to Federal Minister of Economics and Labour Wolfgang Clement: "The provisions of the new Act will ensure that all customers have non-discriminatory and efficient access to the networks. This will give competition in the electricity and gas markets a fresh impetus and will enable German consumers to benefit in the long term from competitive electricity and gas prices that compare well with anywhere else in Europe."

The Act lays down the conditions for an efficient and streamlined regulation of the supply-network monopoly:

• clear unbundling guidelines will do much to ensure that competition for power and gas cannot be distorted by discrimination against competing entities that wish to use the supply networks.
• The neutrality of the network operating system is further strengthened by various organisational and personnel guidelines.
• Operators will in future be required to keep separate accounts for their network business. This will greatly help the regulators in the cost-efficient auditing of the network utilisation charges and will also prevent cross-subsidisation.
• Largely normative guidelines for network regulation will provide all market participants with a large measure of legal certainty and will create a uniform set of competitive conditions.

The network access and network charging regulations that will also be needed to ensure a smooth-functioning regulatory system are to be concluded in the very near future and should come into force at the same time as the Act itself. Once the new legislation has taken effect – the target date being early 2005 – the conditions will have been created by which the regulatory authorities are able to exercise an effective ex-post control over network operators to prevent malpractice and abuse of the system.

Clement again: "The aim of the draft legislation is to establish an adequate regulatory system specifically designed to cope with the German situation, with its multiplicity of network operators, a system that on one hand prevents excessive bureaucracy and on the other ensures that network charges are efficiently monitored for the benefit of electricity and gas consumers."

For more information visit:
http://www.steinkohleportal.de/medien/other/20040804083039.pdf (German version)

Source:  BMWA – The Act still requires approval by the Bundesrat.