January 2019

CEER Newsletter

Editorial

New President. New 3-year 3D Strategy. New work programme. New initiative with African regulators.

Energy regulators start the new year with several exciting new beginnings.

CEER elected Dr Annegret Groebel (BNetzA, Germany) as our new CEER President. Separately, ACER elected Ms Clara Poletti (ARERA, Italy) as Chair of the ACER Board of Regulators. Congratulations to both !

         

Dr Annegret Groebel, CEER President

 

The focus of CEER’s 3-year 3D Strategy is on:
•    Digitalisation in the consumer interest (D1);
•    Decarbonisation at least cost (D2); and
•    Dynamic regulation: European solutions for adaptive regulation in a fast-changing world (D3).

These “3Ds” will drive many of CEER’s activities and deliverables over the next 3 years. Alongside the 3D Strategy, CEER published its 2019 Work Programme which includes deliverables under each of the 3Ds (see our feature article below).
Also published is our latest report on Regulatory Frameworks for European Energy Networks (previously called the "Investment Conditions Report”). This report provides an overview of Europe’s energy network regulatory regimes, covering for example the cost of capital, regulatory asset base and depreciation methodologies. 

On the international front, CEER has started a new capacity-building initiative with African regulators. The latest edition of the bi-annual ICER Chronicle is out (see International section below).

 

Feature - CEER’s 3D Strategy and 2019 Work Programme
A major highlight of 2018 was the development of CEER’s “3D” strategic policy objectives, covering the three years from 2019 to 2021. As regulators’ primary concern is with protecting the public interest, consumers are at the very core of CEER’s 3D strategy.

Following a public consultation, CEER’s 3D strategy was finalised and published along with our Evaluation of Responses to our public consultation. CEER thanks the various organisations for their input to the process.

CEER’s 3D Strategy (for 2019-2021) is focused on:
•    Digitalisation in the consumer interest;
•    Decarbonisation at least cost; and
•    Dynamic Regulation.

Furthermore, the 3D strategy includes a set of new CEER agreed values of Cooperation, Evidence, Expertise and Respect.

                       

Digitalisation in the consumer interest
CEER’s digitalisation objective is to:
•  Foster competitive European markets that protect and empower consumers;
•  Enable cost-savings for consumers using digitalisation with a whole energy system approach;
•  Ensure an agile regulatory framework enables innovation while ensuring a level playing field; and
• Strengthen cooperation among sectoral regulators, consumer protection authorities, etc. to ensure consumers are protected as traditional energy markets are reinvented.

Decarbonisation at least cost
Regulators advocate strongly that energy decarbonisation must be achieved at least cost to consumers. This can be done by:
•  Developing an energy market design that minimises the need for subsidy mechanisms; and
• Minimising the whole energy system cost of decarbonisation, in both the gas and electricity sectors, while maintaining a high level of security of supply.

Dynamic regulation
CEER is determined to make regulation agile and coherent in responding to digitalisation and decarbonisation, where European energy consumers’ interests are forefront in our approach. We see that regulation must be stable but not static.

2019 Work Programme
CEER’s 3D Strategy will be implemented through CEER’s annual work programme. Check out our 2019 Work Programme for deliverables under each of the 3Ds. For example, in setting digitalisation in the consumer interest as a strategic objective, CEER plans (inter alia) to publish a digitalisation public consultation paper in March 2019 which will examine the impacts of digitalisation in the energy sector and the role of energy regulators to help ensure that consumers benefit from it.  Our follow-on work from the 2018 Future Role of Gas study is a further illustration of how gas can deliver on the decarbonisation part of the 3D strategy.

Publications

CEER 3D Strategy for 2019 to 2021 and accompanying Evaluation of Responses
CEER 2019 Work Programme
-  CEER – RAERESA joint Press Release “European energy regulators sign Memorandum of Understanding with Eastern and Southern Africa energy regulators”, 29 January 2019
-  CEER Press Release “Dr Annegret Groebel is elected President of the Council of European Energy Regulators”, 24 January 2019
-  
CEER Report on Regulatory Frameworks for European Energy Networks, 18 January 2019

International

- CEER signed a Memorandum of Understanding with REARESA (the Regional Association of Energy Regulators of Eastern and Southern Africa) to provide short-term capacity-building for regulators in Africa on a range of issues. See the joint press release.
-  The latest (9th) edition of the ICER Chronicle is out.
       

Contact

Una.Shortall@ceer.eu
Tel: +32 278 873 30 or
      + 32 484 668 599

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