Page 19 - European Energy Innovation - Summer 2017 publication

Summer 2017 European Energy Innovation
When people talk about
energy prices they
often like to say that data hub that can be accessed by all:
the cheapest energy
is saved energy. This is indeed very
true. Thus, in order to save on our
energy bills we have to find ways to
limit our energy consumption. And in
relation to that we need to talk about
empowered consumers. Consumers
can be empowered only when they are
informed and can make choices on the
basis of actual information about their
consumption.
When discussions around the new
clean energy package started, one
of the great surprises for me was to
learn that in many European countries
consumers get their energy bill only
once a year. How can you make
informed choices when you only
get information regarding your past
consumption once a year? On this
basis, one cannot decide if they made
good or bad choices, e.g. if they could
have used some appliances during
non-peak hours.
This once-a-year arrangement is even
more strange if you think about all the
digital tools that are currently available
to deliver the relevant data every day
or even every hour. But data delivery
can only be done if consumers have
smart meters.
Estonia is the only country in the world
with 100% smart meters. As the data is
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ESTONIA PRESIDENCY
all running to the Transmission System
Operator (Elering), it has created a
consumers, producers, grid operators
but also anyone who wants to build
their new applications or services based
on that data. Data hub (Andmeladu)
holds all agreements related to
electricity transfer and consumption
and all measurement data.
Through the data hub electricity
consumers can receive information on
their electricity consumption points and
their agreements, view past electricity
consumption data and authorize one or
more electricity sellers to access their
data, so they can make personalized
offers. Although the data is in a very
readable format, people can also ask
service providers to make them offers
and choose between them. So we
can really say that smart meters are
smart not only for the producers and
professional market players but also
for regular consumers who want to
bring their energy costs down. To those
critics who say that such a data hub is
difficult and costly to deliver I can give
an interesting fact: the feasibility study
to do the data hub in Norway cost
more than doing the whole data hub in
Estonia. So it is not a matter of costs but
willingness.
Unfortunately, the European
Commission has not been very
ambitious in requiring the Member
States the complete the roll-out of
smart meters. The Third Energy Package
provides that the implementation of
smart metering may be subject to an
economic assessment of long-term
costs and benefits to the market and
individual consumers. For electricity,
Member States must proceed with
smart metering roll-out to cover at least
80% of positively assessed cases on
their territory by 2020; and prepare an
implementation timetable for a period
of up to ten years. This has still not
been done.
If there is no push from the Commission
and the Member States don’t realise
the benefits that their consumers
might enjoy by being more informed,
we may risk the non-realisation of
the Energy Union, as some regions
of Europe are better developed than
others. Consumers in some parts
of Europe enjoy making informed
choices while others lag behind. In the
former, markets also develop better,
as consumers can easily change their
supplier and so real competition is
working between service providers. If
the aim of the Clean Energy package is
to make markets work, then informed
consumers are the key to achieving
this goal.
Estonia will take on the Presidency in
July, and people in Brussels have high
hopes for it - we are small, digital, and
efficient, they say. So let’s hope we will
also guide Europe towards being more
energy efficient. ●