Ensuring competitiveness and integrity of wholesale energy markets: the regulators’ view

Competitiveness of wholesale energy markets is a fundamental goal of the EU since more than 20 years. Recently, specific pieces of legislation like REMIT have been introduced to foster market transparency and integrity. According to Clara Poletti – Head of the Energy Division at the Italian energy regulator ARERA (formerly known as AEEGSI) – national energy regulators are used to cooperate with national competition authorities and the European Commission to promote competition both ex-ante and ex-post. They are now obliged to adapt their procedures and praxis to the new rules. Beside traditional issues like abuse of market power and market foreclosure, they need to consider further cases of market abuse, not necessarily implemented by dominant players. Harmonised implementation across Europe is vital.

A relevant example is represented by excessive pricing. Unfortunately, due to the current deployment of more capital intensive electricity generation technologies, it is more and more difficult to assess whether a price is excessive or not. In other words: are the high prices recorded from time to time on wholesale markets the result of scarcity or the consequence of market power and other unfair conducts by market players? Academics are invited to contribute to the discussion.