The Administrative Board of the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) has extended the mandate of the current Director, Mr Christian Zinglersen, for another five-year mandate. This takes effect from 1 January 2025 until 31 December 2029.

Mr Zinglersen’s reappointment as ACER Director ensures continued leadership of the Agency at a time of significant challenges in EU energy markets, ambitious EU energy and climate goals and an expanded role for ACER. The Agency is on the path of significant growth, reflecting its expanding role following three major legislative packages adopted in 2024. These reforms (which aim to enhance electricity market integration, strengthen the oversight of energy markets to protect businesses from market abuse, and support gas decarbonisation) coupled with its previously mandated work shape ACER’s agenda for the years ahead.

Chair of ACER’s Administrative Board, Ms Edit Herczog, said:

“In the context of today’s planetary and geopolitical boundaries and the importance of energy to our society and the economy, the role of ACER in driving an interconnected EU energy ecosystem is vital. This is the mission of the ACER Director and leadership for the next five years.”

Chair of ACER’s Boards of Regulators, Ms Clara Poletti, said:

“The unanimous favourable opinion of the Board of Regulators to the Director’s reappointment underscores the national regulators’ belief in Mr Zinglersen’s strong leadership and his dedication to steering the Agency through its evolving mandate.”

On his reappointment as ACER Director, Mr Zinglersen said:

“I am honoured to have the trust and confidence of the ACER Boards to steer the Agency through its evolving mandate for the coming years. At ACER, we understand the real-world energy challenges and trade-offs that governments and stakeholders face. One such key challenge facing Europe, and a promise of the European Commission under its new political mandate, is to enhance EU competitiveness while reducing energy bills for companies and households. A key component here will be how Europe’s integrated energy markets evolve in the years ahead. Naturally ACER and our members, the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), will have a key role to play here if leaders across the EU decide to leverage further this potential asset.

Building trust is not built solely on shared values but also through ACER’s daily graft alongside the NRAs of monitoring energy markets and networks to ensure the rules are respected, removing barriers, increasing transparency, analysing data to detect market manipulation and insider trading, and providing evidence-based insights that help decision-makers make informed decisions about the trade-offs they face. As the saying goes, ‘The only easy day was yesterday’, reflecting that as our energy transition unfolds, there will be ample new and exciting challenges to devote ourselves to.”

The ACER Administrative Board’s decision (at its 11-12 December meeting) to reappoint Director Zinglersen was based on a proposal by the European Commission and supported by a favourable opinion from the ACER Board of Regulators. Ahead of the decision of the Administrative Board, Mr Zinglersen appeared before the ITRE Committee of the European Parliament (3 December 2024), answering questions from its members.

ACER has released its Opinion on the recent coordinated decisions to grant a temporary exemption for the STORK I pipeline from the requirement to establish permanent physical bi-directional gas flow capacity at the cross-border interconnection point (IP) ‘Cieszyn/Český Těšín’ between Poland and the Czech Republic.

What is bi-directional gas flow capacity?

Under the European Security of Gas Supply Regulation, Transmission System Operators (TSOs) must establish permanent physical capacity for gas transport in both directions (bi-directional capacity) at all IPs between Member States. However, temporary exemptions can be granted following a detailed assessment and consultations with stakeholders, other Member States, and the European Commission.

ACER’s assessment

ACER reviewed the coordinated decisions taken by the Czech and Polish responsible Ministries. Both decisions accept the respective TSOs’ proposals to grant the temporary exemption until the end of 2025.

ACER notes that:

• The exemption complies with regulatory requirements.
• The reverse gas flow project at this IP is unlikely to significantly enhance gas supply security (e.g. the N-1 indicator) in the Czech Republic. However, enabling reverse flow could offer some benefits for the Czech Republic, such as improved access to Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) supplies from Poland.
• A market assessment by the project promoters shows no interest in developing transportation capacity from Poland to the Czech Republic.
• The exemption (valid until December 2025) allows more time to evaluate the project's necessity and feasibility.

Before the exemption expires, ACER recommends that project promoters reassess the project, focusing on:

• technical solutions on the Czech side to enable firm capacities and ensure permanent physical reverse flow capabilities;
• market interest and expected gas flows; and
• the project’s potential to reduce the Czech Republic’s dependency on Russian gas.

What are the next steps?

ACER has submitted its Opinion to the relevant authorities of the Czech Republic and Poland, as well as to the European Commission for further consideration. The Commission may choose to either raise no objections to the decisions or request modifications.

The 7th annual Energy Trading Enforcement Forum (ETEF), held on the 3 December 2024 in Ljubljana, brought together over 75 participants from the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), energy National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs), and financial National Conduct Authorities (NCAs) to enhance regulatory cooperation in energy and financial markets.

Regulatory framework and cooperation

Regulatory oversight of potential market abuse of the trading in energy and financial products falls under two EU regulatory frameworks, namely the EU Regulation on Wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) and the Market Abuse Regulation (MAR).

The ETEF is a key platform where energy and financial regulators and the two EU Agencies (ESMA and ACER) meet annually to share experiences on their supervisory activities and enforcement actions to better protect EU consumers and businesses from energy market abuse.

Revised REMIT, market abuse cases and Artificial Intelligence (AI) top the agenda

A key focus of the 7th annual ETEF discussions was on the enhanced REMIT regulatory framework.  The revised REMIT Regulation (which came into effect on 7 May 2024) introduces new measures to better protect the EU citizens and businesses from energy market abuse.

• It brings a closer alignment of the EU definitions and provisions for transparency and integrity of energy markets with those in the financial markets.
• It grants ACER new investigatory and enforcement powers in certain cross-border cases.
• Furthermore, it calls for a reinforced cooperation between energy and financial regulators, strengthening their ability to detect, prevent, investigate and enforce the prohibition of market abuse in energy markets.

This year’s ETEF also consolidated the cooperation principles for market abuse cases which simultaneously fall under REMIT and MAR (i.e. cases involving wholesale energy products which are also financial instruments). Such cases need close cooperation to ensure effective enforcement among all national and European authorities involved.

The growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in energy and financial markets’ trading was also a major topic of interest, together with the sharing of regulatory experience in detecting and investigating the most common types of market abuse.

For more information on the work of ACER and ESMA to protect energy and financial markets from abuse, visit the dedicated pages on the ACER and ESMA websites. 

For the first time, ACER publishes its Country Sheets to present key metrics on retail electricity markets across EU Member States and Norway. These short 1-pagers provide insights into:

• key market facts;
• consumer trends, including contract uptake and bill breakdown;
• national progress towards 2030’s decarbonisation targets, showing status of electric vehicles’ (EVs') uptake, EV’s charging stations, the installation of heat pumps and the share of final renewable energy consumption;
• a high-level SWOT analysis to show strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of each market.  

What are the key findings? 

ACER finds that demand-side flexibility remains limited: the majority of consumers in most countries are on fixed-price contracts, hindering their active participation in electricity markets.

This is despite in many cases, the access to smart metering should enable the provision and uptake of more flexible contracts for both household and non-household consumers.

ACER’s Country Sheets complement the annual Retail Market Monitoring Report and accompanying retail (electricity and gas) data dashboard.

REMIT is the EU framework that aims to prevent wholesale energy market abuse and support fair competition. The REMIT regulation was recently revised to ensure the regulatory framework keeps pace with evolving market dynamics. Regulation 2024/1106 entered into force on 8 May 2024. As part of this revision, the European Commission is mandated to revise the REMIT Implementing Regulation by 8 May 2025. This update is aimed at defining new rules and requirements for data reporting under REMIT.

To aid the Commission’s revision process, ACER ran a public consultation (28 June to 16 September 2024) to collect input on proposed revisions to the Annex of the REMIT Implementing Regulation.

Key findings from the consultation

ACER thanks the 92 respondents for their input, which has been analysed and summarised in ACER’s evaluation of responses report. The document provided the basis for discussions at the roundtable meetings (26 and 28 November 2024) on data reporting.

The consultation respondents:

• Stressed the need for maintaining a stable and well-functioning data reporting framework.
• Provided detailed feedback on different sections of the Annex, questioning the feasibility and necessity of the proposed changes.
• Emphasised the importance of allowing sufficient time to implement new reporting requirements.

The individual responses will be made available on the ACER website.

What are the next steps? 

• The outcomes of ACER public consultation and roundtable meetings will contribute to the ongoing discussion with the European Commission on the revision of the REMIT Implementing Regulation.
• The Commission will then amend the Implementing Regulation to define the new data reporting requirements by 8 May 2025.

ACER will continue to provide timely updates and guidance notes e.g.:

• ACER open letter (17 April 2024) on the main changes the revised REMIT brings.
• ACER open letter (30 July 2024) on the notification requirements for algorithmic trading (including examples of trading algorithms that fall within the scope of the new requirement).
• ACER open letter (25 September 2024) on the designation of representatives by non-EU market participants and on the new obligations of persons professionally arranging or executing transactions (PPAETs) under the revised REMIT.
• Updated Transaction Reporting User Manual (version 7 is expected to be published by end of Q4 2024/Q1 2025).
• Updated ACER Guidance (version 7 is expected to be published by end of Q4 2024).

Natural gas and hydrogen network developments are instrumental for achieving EU’s decarbonisation goals, ensuring natural gas security of supply and fostering the hydrogen market. Consistency in network planning at European and national levels promotes efficient network development.

Every two years, ACER evaluates how well national gas and hydrogen Network Development Plans (NDPs) align with the EU-wide Ten-Year Network Development Plan (EU TYNDP).

What is in ACER’s latest Opinion?

ACER’s latest Opinion (covering 2023-2024) reveals two main trends:

• Growing consistency in gas network planning: there is a modest yet encouraging trend towards aligning national gas NDPs with the EU TYNDP. Key findings suggest:
  • A shift towards biennial gas NDP updates to align with EU TYNDP timeline.
  • Consolidated network operators’ plans published at the Member State level instead of separate publications from each operator.
  • More scenario planning processes that jointly consider gas and electricity sectors.
  • NDPs’ increased focus on integrating low-carbon and renewable gases, along with decommissioning and repurposing projects.

• Emerging hydrogen network planning practices: several countries have developed hydrogen strategies, legal frameworks, and specific hydrogen planning activities.
  • There is a low but growing consistency in hydrogen TYNDP projects included in the NDPs (rising from 17% in 2022 to 33% in 2024).

What does ACER recommend?

To improve consistency of NDPs:

• Consult stakeholders and coordinate with neighbouring operators to exchange information on scenarios, infrastructure gaps, and cross-border projects.
• Coordinate the timing of national planning with the EU-TYNDP development process as much as possible.
• Reinforce national regulatory authorities’ oversight.
• Emphasise the integration of low-carbon and renewable gases, along with decommissioning and repurposing projects.

To improve consistency of EU TYNDPs:

• Provide detailed information on costs and, where possible, on monetised benefits, following electricity TYNDP practices.
• Improve planning to prevent recurrent delays in the TYNDP development and release.
  • Ensure relevant projects appear in both NDPs and TYNDPs.
  • Synchronise expected market developments with a prudent assessment of infrastructure needs.

What are the next steps?

Member States and European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) are expected to implement the new provisions set out by the Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Package. ACER encourages them to consider the recommendations of this Opinion to increase consistency in future national and European NDPs.

The next ACER Opinion will be published in 2026.

For a deeper understanding of the European hydrogen landscape and market developments, check out our Market Monitoring Report on European hydrogen markets, published today.

Europe's Hydrogen and Gas Decarbonisation legislation (2024) tasks ACER with monitoring the emerging hydrogen market.

ACER’s first hydrogen monitoring report highlights that, despite ambitious EU strategies, hydrogen projects face risks from uncertainties of future hydrogen demand and high costs.

What are the main findings?

• Low hydrogen demand: The EU is likely to miss the 2030 strategic goal of 20 Mt renewable hydrogen consumption, as current consumption at European level is 7.2 Mt (99.7% of it produced from fossil fuels). EU renewable energy and decarbonisation targets can increase demand for renewable and low-carbon hydrogen by 2030, but so far uptake has been slow.

• Limited electrolyser capacity:
  • Total installed capacity of electrolysers in Europe in 2023 was 216 MW.
  • Further 70 GW planned for 2030 announced but few are advanced.
  • Overall planned capacity is less than the 100+ GW needed to reach EU’s 10 Mt renewable hydrogen production target by 2030.

• High costs prevent renewable hydrogen uptake: The cost of renewable hydrogen is currently 3 to 4 times higher than hydrogen produced from natural gas, discouraging its early offtake.

• Significant infrastructure planned but they face uncertainties in being realised:
  • 42,000 km of hydrogen pipelines, numerous storage projects and terminals are planned for the next decade, but only 1% has reached final investment decision, as future hydrogen demand uncertainties pose significant challenges to project promoters.
  • Integrated planning by network operators is needed to ensure grid development at sufficient pace and to optimally locate electrolysers.

What are ACER’s key recommendations?

• Quickly transpose the EU (2024) hydrogen and decarbonised gas laws into national legislation and implement them.
• Speed up electrolysers deployment and decarbonisation of electricity sector to increase renewable hydrogen’s cost competitiveness.
• Improve forecasting and accelerate integrated planning to identify realistic hydrogen infrastructure needs, avoiding overinvestments and reducing costs related to under-recovery risks.
• When future demand is highly uncertain, consider incremental infrastructure development based on market needs (to avoid building too much network too fast and stranded assets).
• Consider carefully the repurposing of gas networks for hydrogen to minimise costs, while not overlooking the potential impacts on the broader gas sector (including security of gas supplies).                                                     
• Swiftly address demand risk in financing hydrogen networks.
• Provide market certainty over the role of non-renewable, low-carbon hydrogen.

Do not miss the ACER webinar: Europe’s emerging hydrogen market on Tuesday, 3 December (10:00 – 11:00 CET). Register for free and debate with our experts!