New EU rules on access to electricity metering and consumption data have been adopted by the Commission today. They aimed to further protect consumers and empower them through digitalisation to be more active in the energy transition. The requirements and procedures implemented under this new secondary legislation will ensure that data on metering and consumption in EU countries use one common reference model.
Today’s implementing regulation is the first of a number of such regulations, which will be put in place in the next two years in order to facilitate the interoperability of energy consumer data, in compliance with Article 24 of the Electricity Directive (EU/2019/944), and one of the key deliverables of the Digitalisation of Energy Action Plan of last October. Subsequent regulations will focus on data relating to customer switching, demand response and other services.
Under the new act, consumers will be able to get easy access to their metering data and also give permission for data on their energy consumption or generation to be used by third parties in ways which benefit them. This might include, for example, receiving a tailor-made estimation of what contract would be best and cheapest to meet their energy needs, renewable energy installations or energy savings. In this way, the new rules are an important enabler for the European Green Deal and REPowerEU, empowering consumers to actively participate in the energy transition and giving them access to more affordable energy.
For businesses and system operators, these rules, and those to come with the next wave of data implementing acts, will facilitate their operation on the internal market and the easy, safe and secure flow of data to those that need it. In turn, this will help operators to improve existing processes and incentivise the development and delivery of new energy services, such as energy sharing and demand response.
Background
The adoption of today’s implementing act follows an intensive development phase and consultation process with the relevant stakeholders to ensure the new rules cover all the necessary issues and are workable in practice. Network operators were closely involved in the exercise and will remain key in the rollout of these rules as well as in preparing for the upcoming data-implementing acts.
Following consultation with the European Data Protection Supervisor, the Electricity Cross-Border Committee approved the rules on 3 March 2023, paving the way for the adoption of the implementing act today by the Commission. The European Parliament and the Council were closely involved in the process and had the opportunity to scrutinise the implementing legislation.
The Commission will continue to work closely with EU countries and system operators to support the effective implementation of this and future acts in the series. In particular, the Commission, assisted by the representatives of the distribution and transmission system operators at the EU level (DSO Entity and ENTSO-E), will facilitate the organisation of a series of workshops to help national authorities and system operators introduce and apply the new data access interoperability rules provided by today’s legislation.
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Details
- Publication date
- 6 June 2023
- Author
- Directorate-General for Energy