18.5.2018

ACER reports on Cross-Border Cost Allocation Decisions for trans-European energy infrastructure

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​The Agency publishes today the Third Edition of the Summary Report on Cross-Border Cost Allocation (CBCA) decisions for electricity and gas Projects of Common Interest (PCIs). CBCA decisions are one of the regulatory tools provided by the EU Regulation on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure to facilitate the implementation of PCIs. The purpose of this Report, published ahead of the 2018 edition of the Energy Infrastructure Forum, is to provide a factual review of the CBCA processes. The Report may be useful for project promoters and NRAs dealing with investment requests and CBCA decisions, as well as for interested stakeholders.

The Report covers all the 30 investment requests that resulted in CBCA decisions adopted by NRAs (28 instances) and the Agency (2 instances). 

The main findings are:

  • 20 decisions are for gas and 10 for electricity PCIs. However, the decisions have been equally split between the gas and the electricity sectors during the past 2 years;

  • 14 decisions were taken in 2014 alone, but since 2015 there was a relatively steady stream of 4 to 6 decisions per year;

  • 12 decisions were adopted for PCIs belonging to the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan electricity and gas priority corridors;

  • 70% of the decisions are for PCIs located in only one country, while 30% are for interconnectors;

  • Overall investment costs of the projects exceed €12 billion (€7.6 billion in gas and €4.5 billion in electricity);

  • Most of the decisions allocated 100% of the investment costs, but in 8 instances the decisions allocated only part of the investment costs, and counted on public funding to fill the remaining financial gap;

  • Most of the decisions are based on cost-benefit analysis showing net positive impacts in the hosting countries, and therefore allocated the investment costs to the country where the actual costs would be incurred. There are 4 instances of non-hosting countries providing CBCA contributions, all for gas projects, amounting to a total of €130 million. In addition, cross-border compensation payments were decided among the hosting countries amounting to about €130 million;

  • All the project promoter(s) who received CBCA decisions expressed an intention to apply for EU grants for works under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for energy.
The overview and main findings is available here.
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