According to the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) “poorly designed capacity measures” devised by individual European Union (EU) member states “may risk distorting electricity trading, generation and investment decisions”.
The comments came in CEER’s response to the European Commission’s recently published package of proposals on public interventions in electricity markets. CEER called for better coordination between neighbouring transmission system operators, National Regulatory Agencies and Member States in defining the cross-border rules for capacity mechanisms.
CEER’s warning echoed earlier comments by European energy commissioner Günther Oettinger who highlighted the variety of capacity mechanisms in place in the EU as an example of what he saw as an emerging lack of EU focus in national energy policies in the EU: “What I can’t accept is 28 parallel capacity mechanisms – that would be the end of the internal market ,” he said.
The regulators said EU policies giving renewables priority access to networks should be “reconsidered”. It went on: “We should analyse how the costs for the deployment of renewable generation capacity are socialised among energy consumers.”
CEER called also for clear and simple schemes for demand side participation whereby consumers can alter their usage of power to assist network operators in balancing the system. “Network tariffs should be designed in such a way that they do not discourage or even disadvantage demand side resources from actively participating in load shifting activities,” CEER said.