The German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur – BNetzA) has started the procedures to amend the grid access conditions for electricity today. On this note, BNetzA has published for the first time the draft of a specifically designed e-mobility grid access contract open for consultation untel July 22, 2020. The draft constitutes a regulatory milestone for the development of the e-mobility market as it paves the way for the liberalization of the market to supply e-mobility users with charging electricity.
Background
Grid operators are natural monopolists and therefore obliged to grant everyone access to the grid on non-discriminatory terms. In order to ensure compliance, BNetzA – as the responsible regulatory authority – has issued a standard grid access contract since 2015, which must be used by all grid operators,. However, the provisions of the standard grid access contract are so far only applied network usage by electricity suppliers and end customers .
However, operators of charging points are not necessarily electricity suppliers, nor do they consume the electricity drawn from the grid for refueling e-vehicles. The final consumption of the charged electricity takes place in the e-vehicle. Hence, the current standard grid access contract does not cover the specific market role of the charging point operator.
The market partners therefore use a workaround: The electricity charged to re-fuel electric vehicles is treated as “end consumption” of the charging point and its operator. Despite the question whether this legal fiction is in line with the concept of the German Energy Industry Act (Energiewirtschaftsgesetz – EnWG) and European law, this workaround creates a major disadvantage. In consequence, e-mobility users are forced to use the electricity supplier that the charging point operator has chosen for its charging point, instead of bringing his or her own supplier to the charging point. The situation corresponds to the stationary electricity market before its liberalization and must be regarded critical under antitrust law (for further details, see https://www.ewerk.nomos.de/fileadmin/ewerk/doc/2019/Ewerk_2019_06_01.pdf).
The new grid acces contract „E-Mob“
The new grid acces contract „E-Mob“ is a crucial piece to the puzzle that is supposed to change the situation: The regulations shall apply in the for the grid access of charging points in addition to the standard grid access contract. The contractual partner of the grid operator is the operator of charging point. All charging points of an operator in a grid area are combined to form a virtual charging point network, which is treated like an adjacent physical distribution network. The charging points represent the grid interconnection points to the physical network. The electricity that enters the virtual grid is economically balanced between the charging point grid operator and the operator of the connected physical grid. To this purpose, the charging point grid operator forms a virtual balancing area. The new role corresponds to the virtual grid operator known from the telecommunications sector.
In consequence, the electricity charged by the e-mobility users can be allocated to the respective e-mobility user. The way, the e-mobility users are enabled to freely choose his or her charging electricity supplier and bring it to any charging point.
(11 June 2020)