The Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), the Energy Community Regulatory Board (ECRB) and the Association of Mediterranean Energy Regulators (MEDREG) held their 3rd Trilateral Workshop on regulatory means to foster active customer engagement, on 26 and 27 May in online format.
Strengthening regulatory dialogue across Europe and the Mediterranean region to support consumers in becoming active energy market participants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery were themes of the two-day trilateral workshop. Special focus was given to commercial quality, prosumers and active self-consumption, billing and digitalisation.
Active consumer engagement plays a vital role in driving strong competition, ensuring markets work effectively and making the energy transition a reality. This, in turn, raises questions regarding which regulatory measures can be used to extend these benefits to all consumers and how to engage all consumers. Making sure that no one is left behind is a fundamental guiding principle for CEER, ECRB and MEDREG in their regulatory responsibilities and their work relating to consumer protection.
This third edition of the trilateral workshop is an example of enhanced cooperation between the three regional organisations of energy regulators, confirmed in a cooperation arrangement that was signed in December 2018.
CEER President Annegret Groebel said: “Placing consumers at the centre of energy markets, with consumer-centric dynamic regulation, and empowering consumers to actively contribute to and benefit from a flexible energy system is an essential part of the regulatory model on which CEER is building its new Strategy 2022-2025 towards a carbon-neutral society and economy. This is done by embedding into our work the principles of the CEER-BEUC 2030 Vision for Energy Consumers5.”
ECRB President, Mr Marko Bislimoski added: “Consumers have been at the heart of the ECRB since the very beginning. It is our core duty as regulators to ensure that the liberalization of energy markets and the energy transition deliver for the benefit of consumers. Safeguarding a fair deal for consumers in the context of the Clean Energy Package has added a new dimension to our work. Encouraging consumers to take full advantage of the new flexibility tools and thus empowering them to play an active role in the energy transition has taken centre stage in the ECRB’s activities. This is alongside our continued efforts to ensure a high standard of consumer protection and quality of energy supply.”
MEDREG Permanent Vice-President Mr. Stefano Besseghini underlined: “Nowadays energy consumers are not always able to access affordable energy and thus become actual prosumers across the Mediterranean region. With today’s workshop and an ongoing report on this topic, MEDREG calls for an increasing digitalization that supports the development of smarter and safer energy systems, which will enable consumers to better benefit from innovative services and be active players in the energy markets. In MEDREG, we will deepen what regulators can do to encourage the usage of flexibility services when they are economically viable – particularly through their management of network tariffs, balancing and capacity allocation mechanisms.”
Different case studies and trends of activity of the three associations were presented, focusing on flexibility, demand response and prosumers.
On retail market developments, it emerged that technology can be a driver of change both in developing and developed countries. While in the former technology can serve the scope of easing access to electricity and ensure that competition is spreading, in the latter it helps to better customize energy offers and protect consumers’ data soundly.
Addressing commercial quality in energy service provisions, it was underlined that a consumer-centric world demands that regulators ensure that there is a strong and reliable relationship between consumer and distributors, bringing their interests together and ensuring that complaints are well processed, and queries are properly answered.
When discussing prosumers and active self-consumption it was noted that, in order to transition from consumers to prosumers, people need to receive reliable, understandable and transparent information on the implications. Consumers are encouraged also to associate energy communities in their neighborhoods to facilitate independent, self-generation and local distribution at competitive tariffs.
Participants noted that bills should be designed to deliver power to and ensure engagement from consumers, so that they can take charge of their choices, become more conscious and have a positive behavioral change. Digitalization provides the tool to communicate more closely, and the energy sector offers new possibilities to convey complex content and access information more easily and frequently. Regulators will have to adapt secondary legislation to ensure that it meets the digitalization challenge by developing new digital services for the market actors.
This third trilateral CEER-ECRB-MEDREG workshop followed a first one which took place on 27 June 2018 in Vienna and focussed on consumer involvement and retail market opening. The second trilateral CEER-ECRB-MEDREG workshop was held on 25 June 2019 in Brussels and focussed on consumer empowerment in the digital era and in the context of the Clean Energy for All Europeans package.
The annual trilateral workshop is an important part of CEER’s, ECRB’s and MEDREG’s work programmes and an element of the cooperation arrangement signed between the three regional regulatory bodies in December 2018.