The regional approach to the internal energy market: by what means? | Alberto Pototschnig (ACER) - a podcast by Florence School of Regulation

The regional approach to the internal energy market: by what means? | Alberto Pototschnig (ACER)

At the end of the Annual Conference of ACER near Ljubljana, Nicolò Rossetto (FSR) and Alberto Pototschnig, the Director of the Agency for the Cooperation of the Energy Regulators (ACER), discuss the regional dimension of the internal energy market. Currently, there is a consensus that the EU has to move forward with regional cooperation in the field of electricity and gas. However, it is not yet clear how to implement such regionalisation. Thus far, the experience was mainly based on voluntary initiatives like the Pentalateral Energy Forum. Discussions on the matter are ongoing, with several questions hotly debated: what aspects should be part of the regional dimension? What geographical scope should the regions have? What are the most appropriate governance and regulatory frameworks for the regions?
The discussion is particularly lively in the area of electricity, where ENTSO-E and the European Commission have partly diverging opinions on the issue and the legislative proposals presented at the end of 2016. There is an undisputed need for political backing to regional cooperation in electricity: for some, this requires new initiatives by the national policy-makers and regulators (NRAs), while for others the backing is already embedded in the current rules (i.e., Third Energy Package). In the latter case, regionalisation is a merely technical and regulatory issue that must be implemented by TSOs and NRAs, possibly with the contribution of ACER.
Indeed, the role of ACER is becoming more important with the shift of the policy level from the Member States to the regions and the whole Europe. A stronger and better staffed ACER is required to support the regional cooperation of NRAs and ensure that regions do not diverge. Eventually, the goal is to have a European single market and not a bunch of poorly integrated regional markets.

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