Países Bajos : July 23, 2010
The Netherlands has been at the forefront in liberalizing its electricity and natural gas markets. By offering consumer choice, the aim has always been to foster greater competition in the Dutch energy markets. The Netherlands is also home to two large wholesale energy markets – the TTF for gas and the APX for electricity.
One of the main cornerstones of European energy deregulation is that in each member state suppliers must segregate their commercial and regulated network activities. In doing so, it is believed that all suppliers would be on a more equal footing in retaining and acquiring market share. While most European countries have separated their commercial and network operations with little resistance, the Netherlands has been the exception. The main point of contention amongst the Dutch suppliers is that the government is requiring a large amount of capital to be placed within the network operations while leaving the commercial operations in short supply of cash for future investments.
Under pressure to move forward, the country’s two largest utilities Nuon and Essent completed legal separation by maintaining their network operations while having their commercial operations acquired by Vattenfall and RWE respectively. Two smaller utilities, Delta and Eneco, who were under less government pressure decided to wait for a court decision regarding the matter.
Legal proceedings began in 2007 with the judge only recently ruling in favor of the utilities on the grounds that there is a conflict between EU law and the Dutch separation act. As such, the ruling has opened the door for Nuon and Essent to file claims against the Government for damages incurred through their separation of operations. The Government has appealed the ruling with the expectation being a slightly amended legal separation act that will be enacted forcing Delta and Eneco to segregate their activities.
In the meantime, the consumer is suffering from these delays surrounding the legal separation of utility activities. In an attempt to minimize confusion, consumers are receiving two bills with one covering their commodity purchases and the other being related to their network charges. While in theory this may appear to be a solution, the double billings hamper transparency of the various cost components. Efforts to provide a single bill for both transport and commodity have hit technical roadblocks as a concerted effort to develop a relevant administrative billing platform is currently lacking.