ACER assesses the proposed methodology to calculate tariffs, including:

• The details on the input parameters to the methodology;
• The regulatory account and the accumulated congestion revenue; and
• The methodology applicable to the L-gas network to transport gas from the Netherlands to France.

What are ACER’s main findings?

The Agency observes that improvements on the proposed transmission tariffs can be achieved based on the provisions of the EU Network Code on Gas Transmission Tariffs and provides some recommendations to the Belgian national regulatory authority CREG.

ACER recommends to CREG to:

• Shorten the duration of the tariff period. This should facilitate the forecast of the contracted capacity, and should help minimise potential under- and over-recoveries as well as the reconciliation of the regulatory accounts.
• Compare (and publish) the forecasted contracted capacity vis-à-vis the realised contracted capacity. This improvement should allow improving the accuracy of the capacity forecast, improve the cost-reflectivity of tariffs and minimises the need to reconcile revenue.
• Ensure the reconciliation of the Transmission System Operator’s (TSO), regulatory accounts, which has accumulated significant over-recoveries, including significant congestion revenue.
• Provide information on the allowed revenue methodology of the TSO, in particular, on the regulatory asset base revaluation of the TSO.
• Provide additional transparency on the cost and the capacity forecast that is used for the calculation of tariffs.

Access the report on the Belgian gas tariffs.

Access all ACER reports on national tariff consultation documents.

ACER’s policy paper on the further development of the EU electricity forward market:

• Identifies problems of this market segment, among which market fragmentation and lack of integration are the main ones; and
• Recommends solutions (e.g. regional virtual trading hubs to pool liquidity). Such regional hubs need to be complemented by accessible transmission rights to cover the remaining risks of the market participants.

This policy paper serves as ACER’s key recommendations on how to change the Forward Capacity Allocation Regulation.

Background

In the electricity forward market, market participants can trade electricity up to multiple years ahead of its delivery allowing them to protect or hedge themselves against future price fluctuations. Currently, with the exception of the Nordic region, each zone has its own market, bridged by transmission rights issued by the transmission system operators (TSOs). This leads to a fragmented and unequal distribution of the liquidity amongst the different national markets. Unlike the day-ahead and intraday markets, the EU forward market does not work as a single integrated EU market.

While this problem has been partially addressed in the short term markets through the allocation of cross zonal capacities, ACER identified scope to vastly improve long term forward markets.

What are the proposed changes?

ACER proposes a set of changes to improve the functioning of the EU electricity forward market:

1. Creation of virtual trading hubs combined with the issuance of transmission rights between bidding zones and those hubs;
2. Improved allocation of the transmission rights (more frequent, over longer period of time, in revised quantities) by the TSOs;
3. Transmission rights issued in the form of financial obligations; and
4. Optionally, the possibility to assign market making tasks.

What are the expected benefits of the changes?

• Regional hubs will attract and pool the liquidity of many zones, thereby significantly increasing the forward market liquidity.
• Hedging products at such hubs will cover the majority of price risks faced by market participants, whereas the remaining risk would be covered by transmission rights issued by the TSOs.
• Other proposed changes aim to make these transmission rights more accessible, liquid, as well as to better match the hedging needs of the market participants.

What are the next steps?

The recommended policy options are ACER’s proposal for changes to the Regulation on Forward Capacity Allocation. To continue the revision process of this Regulation, the European Commission could request ACER to make a recommendation that would list the proposed amendments. Following the issuance of such recommendation, the European Commission could initiate the comitology phase.

To present its policy paper, ACER organises a workshop on 13 March 2023.

Access the ACER’s policy paper on the further development of the EU electricity forward market.

ACER launches today a targeted consultation on draft amendments to the association documents of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E).

ACER is seeking views from stakeholder organisations, in particular organisations representing the system users, including customers.

Next steps

In order to make an informed assessment ACER invites stakeholder organisations to submit their comments by 17 February 2023. ACER has two months to provide an opinion to the European Commission.

Access the targeted consultation.

REMIT (Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency) provides the EU framework for the transparency and integrity of energy markets and deters market participants from manipulating the market. Thus, it has an important role in protecting the interests of companies and consumers and ensuring trust in energy markets.

What is the REMIT Quarterly?

The REMIT Quarterly is ACER’s main channel of communication with stakeholders on REMIT-related matters, providing updates on ACER’s REMIT activities.

The 31st edition covers the last quarter of 2022 and features:

• An assessment of the operation and transparency of different categories of organised market places and ways of trading, detailing market participants’ activity and the trends in REMIT data reporting and data collection;
• The statistics for registered reporting mechanisms’ (RRMs') contingency reports;
• An updated overview of the sanction decisions for the year 2022, with 350 REMIT cases under review at the end of the fourth quarter; and
• A summary of the most recent updates of REMIT documents.

Find out more.

Every two years, ACER publishes a practice report on electricity transmission and distribution tariff methodologies.

This third edition of ACER’s electricity network tariffs report:

• Reviews the tariff methodologies across EU Member States and Norway;
• Focuses on selected topics (i.e. cost models, cost cascading, injection charges, connection charges, reactive energy charges and time-of-use network tariffs ); and
• Provides recommendations to regulators on how to improve national tariff setting.

What's the relevance of ACER's network tariffs report?

Network tariffs recover the costs to grid operators in developing and operating transmission and distribution networks, which assets are playing a key role in the energy transition.

Network tariffs are designed at national level in multiple ways. Regulators seek to find the right balance between various tariff-setting principles such as cost recovery, cost reflectivity, efficiency, non-discrimination, transparency, non-distortion, simplicity, stability, predictability and sustainability. The integration of renewables, increased demand via electrification, a more active role of network users and affordability in the context of the energy crisis all add further complexity. Hence, the need for ACER’s regular assessment of whether the tariff methodologies continue to be appropriate.

National regulatory authorities (NRAs) are required to take ACER’s report into consideration when fixing or approving transmission or distribution tariffs, or their methodologies.

What does ACER recommend?

The Report provides recommendations to the NRAs:  

• To evaluate the pros and cons of applying incremental or forward-looking cost models;
• To collect network costs, classified by different voltage levels;
• To differentiate a proposed list of cost categories and identify for each of them the most appropriate cost drivers for allocation to the tariff structure;
• To set an appropriate tariff basis for injection charges;
• To consider connection cost-sharing between current and future network users;
• To monitor the evolution of costs due to voltage control and reactive energy management, and to review reactive energy charging where costs deem significant; and
• To investigate the need for time-of-use signals, evaluate their impacts and avoid optionality where they are introduced to reflect system costs.

The report also reiterates previous ACER recommendations (e.g. on frequency of setting tariff methodologies and updating tariff values, stakeholder involvement, transparency and structure of tariffs).

What are the next steps?

ACER plans to:

• Continue to engage with stakeholders into discussions on best practices in tariff setting; and
• Issue the next edition of the Report (planned end of 2024/early 2025) and monitor how NRAs are taking the ACER recommendations into consideration.

Access the report.