Today, the European Parliament has approved, by a vast majority, the agreement on the proposal to improve the EU’s electricity market design. ESMIG welcomes the adoption of this important legislation which contains key provisions to support Demand-Side Flexibility (DSF).
In particular, we fully support the strong call to accelerate the rollout of smart meters “with the objective of reaching a full coverage as soon as possible”. The integration of smart meters enables DSF, allowing consumers to adjust their energy usage based on fluctuations in renewable energy availability. This optimises the utilisation of renewable energy but also helps in reducing the need for backup fossil fuel capacity (on which “flexibility” in the system is mainly based today), directly contributing to decrease GHG emissions.
However, while the Electricity Directive was adopted in 2019, the provisions have not yet adequately been implemented in most Member States. This is limiting the ability of all European consumers to more actively participate and benefit from smart metering and smart energy solutions. Thus, we call on the Member States to swiftly implement all provisions of the EU’s electricity market design on DSF.
The reform of the electricity market design also includes new possibilities such as the introduction of Dedicated Measurement Devices (DMDs). However, these solutions must be carefully assessed. To have a valuable positive impact on DSF, multiple submeters would need to be installed. It is therefore difficult to evaluate whether the added complexity and related costs would be covered by the possible benefits in addition to the existing smart meter’s functionalities enabling DSF. In addition, submeters cannot be used for billing and settlement and thus can only be, if deployed, complementary to the smart meter.
Besides, DMDs must be regulated to ensure that these technologies, such as submeters, comply with similar rules and are under similar scrutiny as billing/balancing meters for reliability and cybersecurity.
Read the statement from the European Parliament here.