Power Engineering - Europe's electricity industry calls for functioning market

13 June 2006 - The leader of the association representing Europe's electricity providers Eurelectric yesterday called for a EU energy policy which brought about a fully functioning market, if electricity was to play its proper role in bringing benefits to society.

Speaking at its annual conference in Olso, Eurelectric President Rafael Miranda pointed to the work urgently needed to integrate electricity markets towards a fully-fledged pan-European market. This requires "electricity stakeholders to join forces and show leadership in furthering regional markets", he argued, underlining that the regional market initiatives currently under way "offer a unique opportunity to make rapid progress and must become a success story".

Miranda said that electricity offered a unique solution to drastically reduce oil dependency, cut down on CO2 emissions and boost energy efficiency.

At the conference, the association unveiled an Oslo Declaration setting out current key priorities for energy policy in the light of the three major challenges: security of supply, market development and climate-change action.

The Oslo Declaration welcomes the current debate over European energy policy fostered by the launch of the European Commission's Green Paper. The European electricity industry stresses the need for a "long-term vision" on energy policy. EU policy should focus on where it can add most value and should provide the "stability and regulatory coherence" necessary to allow the market to function properly and deliver continued investment in vital plant and infrastructure. It is also vital that important primary energy or technology options are not limited through political decisions, argues Eurelectric.

In the context of climate-change action - which requires a global response - policymakers should make available the widest range of tools possible in order to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, underlined Mr Miranda.

The Declaration points to the positive results brought about over the last decade by the opening up of markets to competition. However, "liberalisation is not a one-off event but a process" and further work is now urgently needed to move towards further integration of markets and attain a fully-fledged pan-European market. "Immediate and unambiguous implementation of the liberalisation package" is absolutely vital.

Further progress then requires a "process of cooperation with the development of regional markets as an intermediary step". Eurelectric calls on all electricity stakeholders to "join forces and show leadership in furthering regional markets".

The Declaration points to a number of specific actions that, if undertaken promptly, will bring significant improvement:

• Creating a level playing field on market transparency through voluntary disclosure
• Integrating intraday and balancing markets
• Removing regulated tariffs and price controls
• Implementing a generic model for supplier-switching

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