Retail energy market – EDSO response to European Commission consultation
European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (EDSO) welcomes the public consultation from the European Commission’s DG Energy on the retail energy market and commends the renewed attention of the European Commission to electricity distribution. As pointed out in the introduction of the online questionnaire, the energy market is undergoing a dramatic change. Substantial growth of distributed generation, smart metering deployment, development of demand-response, and progress with regard to grid automation, are opening up new possibilities for the electricity retail market and call for a revision of current regulatory frameworks.
Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are paving the way for a transformation of Europe’s electricity system, equipping consumers with smart meters, connecting solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle charging points and local energy storage, thus delivering power to the consumer in a reliable and cost-efficient way and creating new business opportunities for market players.
EDSO believes that the DSO’s role as neutral market facilitator has to evolve together with the retail market. This is the vision defended in EDSO’s response to the European Commission’s online questionnaire.
Complementing the responses to the online questionnaire, this paper further details EDSO’s feedback on a set of questions related to DSOs. In order to clearly respond to DG Energy’s questions, the structure of this document follows the structure of the public consultation:
- General functioning of the retail market and consumer participation (Q1-7)
- Market Design (Q11-20)
- Demand-Side Participation and Smart Use of Energy (Q21-41)
EDSO felt that the DSO position on questions around, what it has termed, System Flexibility Services, but also the issue of Data Management, required further explanation. EDSO has, therefore, produced two technical reports to be submitted to the European Commission in by the end of April 2014.
