Note on Market Monitoring
Article 11 of Regulation 713/2009 commits ACER to monitor the “internal markets in electricity and
gas, in particular the retail prices of electricity and natural gas, access to the network including
access of electricity produced from renewable energy source, and compliance with the consumer
rights laid down in Directive 2009/72/EC and Directive 2009/73/EC”. Therefore ACER started
developing a set of indicators covering the aforementioned issues to identify barriers to the
completion of the internal markets. These indicators will be used to collect information on the above
aspects, mainly from or through NRAs. The outcome of the monitoring exercise will be published in
an annual report.
To strictly avoid any duplication of effort, the set of indicators takes into account already existent
monitoring activities by the European Commission, NRAs and other relevant authorities.
The monitoring exercise will be conducted by taking advantage of the platform for data collection
already developed by CEER and currently managed by E-Control, the Austrian NRA. In this way there
will be single communication channel for monitoring conducted by CEER and ACER.
Therefore, the set of indicators will be included in CEER’s database of national indicators.
To develop a stable market monitoring system ACER is currently having meetings with CEER,
consumer organisations and the European Commission to gather as much feedback on the draft
indicators as possible.
The set of indicators shall be finalised by the end of 2011, the first annual report shall be published
in 2012 relating to 2011 data. The table below provide a preliminary list of indicators to be used for
monitoring purposes.
Table: Draft list of market monitoring indicators as of 07 September 2011
Topic
Access and
connection
Overview of items monitored
total energy, renewables, priority access of storage/
LNG/biogas/biomethane facilities: average time to connect, capacity
(not) connected, requests for connection, number of refusals, reasons
for refusals
Prices
average European consumer (price index), average consumer in the
country, average consumption, available contract types
Switching
requested switches, switches in and out regulated prices, refusals,
delayed switches (>3 weeks), time to complete incorrect/wrong
switching data, time between request of switch and fulfilment
Smart metering
Number of consumers (households and total) equipped with intelligent
metering system
Billing
alternative payment methods, number of payment methods free of
charge, time for final closure after switching supplier, bills based on selfreading/load profile/estimated values, number of corrected bills
Customer
information
timeframe of informing customers on prices changes, termination of
contract in case of price changes, information on consumption and
costs, transparent and objective information
Complaints
out-of-court dispute settlement procedures, timeframe for settling
complaints
Contracts
number of customers having chosen a different pricing plan from the
same supplier (household/non-household), choice of product
Energy poverty,
vulnerable
customers and
supplier of last
resort
definition of terms, customers being supplied under these pricing
regimes, description of national action plan, disconnections due to
delayed payments