By Chris Jones - 6th November 2006
A new EU regulator could help avoid problems such as last weekend’s major electricity blackout, the European commission has said.
The German electricity giant Eon has admitted it was to blame for the power shortage after its grid overloaded following the decision to switch off a line over the river Ems to allow a ship to pass.
The resulting pressure on other lines affected supplies in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
A spokesman for energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said on Monday that the problem highlights the growing interdependence of EU countries, and the need for a EU-level solution.
“It is clear that the security of Europe’s energy supply will be better achieved through a common European policy,” he said.
Piebalgs will propose a package of measures in January aimed at improving the transfer of electricity and gas between member states, including a formal regulator covering interconnectivity issues.
This would not replace national regulators, who would continue to oversee national grids, but would create binding international standards for connections between one or more national networks.
“We are talking mainly about setting and policing international standards for interconnection,” the spokesman said.
“A group consisting of national network regulators has been working on this informally, but they have had no powers to define standards or ensure they are complied with.”
“If there is a problem with one network, that can impact on all the others, as we saw on Saturday, so the creation of a European-level group working in this area is important.”
The proposals will also include a priority plan aimed at speeding up the building of new interconnectors, as well as plans to give network managers greater access to EU cash for priority interconnections.
The European regulator would also help remove the administrative barriers to the creation of more network interconnectors, such as the granting of licences, the spokesman said.
Calls for greater coordination have also come from some national politicians, with Italian prime minister Romano Prodi calling for a central EU power authority to manage the increasingly unified network.
Brussels is keen to break the national stranglehold over electricity supplies, and is pushing for more cross-border mergers between power companies.
But countries such as Spain and France have opposed calls for greater liberalisation, arguing that foreign-based operators cannot offer sufficient guarantees over the security of supply.
However, suggestions that Eon’s mistake could threaten its proposed takeover of Spanish firm Endesa have been dismissed by commission officials.
Madrid is opposed to the deal, and has imposed a number of conditions on Eon in order to guarantee the security of domestic supply – a move condemned by Brussels as disproportionate to the supposed risk.
Spain lifted or eased some of the conditions late last week, but a number of requirements remain in place, such as the sale of around 30 per cent of Endesa’s domestic electricity generation business, and the country still faces the threat of legal action by the commission.
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