“As EU energy markets continue to integrate, it is important that customers can be confident that the prices they pay are not unduly distorted, but that they reflect the proper interplay of demand and supply” said EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger in his address to the Annual Conference of the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), held today in Ljubljana. This is the aim of REMIT, the EU Regulation on wholesale energy markets integrity and transparency, which establishes a new, unprecedented, sector-specific market monitoring framework to detect and prevent market abuse in European wholesale energy markets, where energy should be traded according to the highest transparency and integrity standards. The experience of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) – ACER’s counterpart in the United States when it comes to market monitoring – can give an idea of the kind of return which could be achievable from investing in REMIT. In 2013 FERC concluded several market abuse investigations, including two high-profile cases which resulted in unjust profits in the order of US$ 160 million being identified.
During the Conference the importance of guaranteeing the confidence of consumers in the energy markets and the need for appropriate funding of ACER for the successful implementation of REMIT was highlighted. “Market participants and energy consumers must be able to have full confidence on the integrity and transparency of European energy markets. It is absolutely critical that the Agency and National Regulatory Authorities have the skilled resources necessary to deliver on these expectations and to avoid any risk of market abuse going undetected”, said Lord Mogg, Chairman of the ACER Board of Regulators, which reunites representatives from all NRAs in the Member States.
You can find out more in ACER’s press release on the Conference.
You can access here the REMIT Report 2014 published today by ACER.
For background information have a look at ACER’s Citizens’ Summary on REMIT.