German energy regulator to study power grid fees

BERLIN - - The incoming regulator for the German energy markets, Mattias Kurth, said he will examine access fees on the country's electricity grids worth 20 billion euros ($25.03 billion) of revenue a year, which customers say are too high and variable."

The goal is to mobilise more efficiencies... such an optimisation may result in lower fees as time goes by," he said recently.

"But I want to create more transparency by working in partnership with the grid companies, to give them planning security for their investments," he added.

Kurth heads the supervisory authority for telecommunications, RegTP in Bonn, which from July 1 will supervise energy markets to bring Germany in line with European Union laws requiring stricter monitoring.

Recently, he had told an industry conference here that he would be given 60 staff to focus on the 1,500 German owners of power and gas distribution networks.

Power grid fees can account for anything between 20 and 70 percent of the total cost charged for electricity in the fragmented market. Germany's cartel office, which in the past has found it difficult to prove alleged cases of overcharging due to limited resources, will continue to act retroactively against proven abuses of market positions.

Cartel office chief Ulf Boege was more forceful than Kurth, telling the conference that run-away power prices showed the need to rein in the influence of established power utilities.

"A number of grid operators are as asking too much money, these sums must be brought down," he said.

Boege last year made an unsuccessful bid to become energy regulator when the German government bowed to EU pressure to enforce EU directives on market liberalisation.