Third party access : a comparative study on access regimes in EU electricity grids and natural gas pipelines

The EU energy market regulation is based on three main pillars: third party access, unbundling and strong regulators. This paper will focus on the first of these. As will be seen throughout this paper, the access regimes in electricity and natural gas regulations are very similar, despite the differences in the respective commodities. The objectives of the third party access provisions of both electricity and natural gas regulations are very similar: to creating capacity to compete.