Bundesnetzagentur launches a consultation process on the recognition of costs for metering in the electricity distribution grid
Year of issue 2023
Date of issue 2023.12.14
The Bundesnetzagentur has today commenced a consultation procedure on how to deal with the costs of metering in the electricity grid.
"The rollout of modern metering equipment and smart metering systems affects everyone. It is a key element of the energy transition,"
said Klaus Müller, President of the Bundesnetzagentur. "Our planned determination will provide planning certainty for the network operators regarding the recognition of metering costs."
Smart meters for consumers, cost certainty for electricity network operators
The rollout of modern metering equipment and smart metering systems should progress swiftly in the coming years. For consumers this means that old meters will be exchanged for smart ones. However, in accordance with the German Metering Act (MsbG) the consumer will only pay a small annual fee for a smart meter; in most cases this will be around 20 euros. Any costs in excess of this will be borne by the distribution system operators, who in return will be able to optimise their network operations based on the information gathered.
On the part of the electricity network operators, there was uncertainty as to how the newly incurred costs for smart metering systems could be dealt with under the current regulations.
The Bundesnetzagentur has therefore launched the consultation procedure in order to create cost certainty for the electricity network operators. This will help to speed up the digitalisation of the low voltage networks.
The consultation by Ruling Chamber 8 on the key elements paper for the determination on the costs for metering will end on 31 January 2024. The ruling chamber will incorporate the responses into a draft of the detailed requirements and will discuss the actual model in a second step.
Further information on the consultation procedure can be found (in German) at: www.bundesnetzagentur.de/bk8aktuell