„The responsibility for the mandatory rollout will in future lie with the distribution network operators and thus within the regulated asset base.“
This statement from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy indicates a profound policy shift that threatens the existence of the market for metering point operation in its current form. The market for metering point operation has been liberalised in Germany since 2005 – there are more than 80 competitive metering point operators who increasingly combine their metering services with innovative business models to flexibilise the electricity market.
However, citing the previously sluggish smart meter rollout, network operators and their associated default metering point operators are calling for a course correction, whereby metering point operation would (again) be assigned to the regulated network in the future. This would entail the end of the previously competitively organised market as well as the abolition or restriction of the market role of competitive metering point operators.
Raue, on behalf of metrify smart metering GmbH, inexogy smart metering GmbH & Co. KG, Lichtblick SE and Octopus Energy GmbH, has examined the legal limits of such a (re-)monopolisation of the market for metering point operation in Germany.
The opinion comes to clear conclusions:
- A complete or partial (re-)monopolisation would violate European and constitutional law.
- This also applies to regulatory measures that structurally weaken the competitive position of competitive metering point operators or give the network operator a competitively relevant key position in the market for metering point operation.
- Rather, the legislator is obliged under European law to secure the competitive regulatory framework, to remove existing competitive barriers and thus to create a level playing field for all market participants.
A transfer or extension of special rights of network operators to the market for metering point operation would result in an impermissible transfer of existing market power from the natural monopoly of the networks into a market that is explicitly designed to be competitive by law. Even such regulatory measures which don’t reach the intensity of a formal (re-)monopolisation but distort competition or establish structural conflicts of interest to the detriment of competitive metering point operators would be impermissible. Such an intervention could neither be justified under EU law nor constitutional law, as there is no sustainable evidence that the existing competition hinders the current metering point operation or the smart meter rollout; rather, previous market investigations point to significant organisational and structural deficits, particularly among smaller default metering point operators. Measures that displace competitive metering point operators from the market or block their access to essential market segments primarily serve to protect competition in favour of basic metering point operators, without solving the existing problems, and thus represent unjustifiable interventions in the freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services as well as the national freedom of occupation.
(27 January 2026)