The German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt – BKartA) has issued a press release today, announcing that a sector inquiry on charging infrastructure for electric vehicles has been initiated.
The market for charging infrastructure is still at an early stage, yet fast growing. Cities and municipalities are investing heavily in the expansion of the current charging infrastrucure for electric vehicles, while the federal government plans to establish a nationwide fast-charging infrastructure (>150 kW) on federal highways. Against this background, the Bundeskartellamt aims to identify structural competition problems, in order to take counteraction already at an early stage to ensure a competitive level playing field for the future emobility market.
According to the Bundeskartellamt, the sector inquiry focuses on two aspects: Firstly, the procecedure that cities, municipalities or the federal government employ to provide charging infrastructure operators with suitable public locations to install charging points. From a competition law perspective the procedures should ensure effective competition instead of creating a market dominance of certain local operators. Secondly, the Bundeskartellamt will investigate the terms and conditions to which charging infrastructure operators grant third-party electricity providers access to their charging infrastructure (for further details, see our article: Antitrust law claim for access to charging stations). Accordingly, the Bundeskartellamt is taking on the issues already addressed with by the German Monopolies Commission in its 7th Energy Sector Report at the end of 2019.
The Bundeskartellamt is in charge for the questions at stake, because the operation of charging infrastructure is not (yet) subject to the comprehensive regulation of the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur – BNetzA) applicable to electricity grids. Nevertheless, the Bundesnetzagentur is responsible for the integration of the future charging infrastructure into the existing energy systems. To this end, the Bundesnetzagentur has introduced the first draft of a grid access contract for charging infrustructure that contains the contractual basis to enable non-discriminatory access to charging point (we reported: BNetzA publishes first draft of e-mobility grid access contract).
Regulatory issues relating to the charging infrastructure are gaining momentum from all sides: the various developments point to the common goal of ensuring a competitive level playing field for the future emobility market.
(9 July 2020)