The Energy Regulation and Markets Review - Stikeman Elliott

Chapter 8
Germany
Dirk Uwer 1
I
OVERVIEW
As a consequence of the transposition of the European Third Energy Package (2009)
into German law, as well as the ‘energy turnaround’ 2 in the wake of the Fukushima
accident, the German energy markets have recently undergone some transitions and are
still facing significant challenges. On the one hand, structural changes occurred, as three
of the four major incumbent vertically integrated energy suppliers decided to sell their
electricity or gas transmission networks. On the other hand, new legislation was enacted
in order to facilitate further liberalisation of the energy markets and promote the energy
turnaround.
II
REGULATION
i The Regulators
The Energy Industry Act (‘the EnWG’) was implemented on 13 July 2005 as the main
statutory framework. As regards energy network-related activities, the EnWG replaced
negotiated third-party access by introducing regulated third-party access. The EnWG
has been supplemented by a number of ordinances, including the Ordinances on Tariffs
for Electricity and Gas Network Access (‘StromNEV’ and ‘GasNEV’), the Ordinance on
Incentive Regulation (‘the ARegV’) and the Ordinances on Access to the Electricity and
Gas Networks (‘StromNZV’ and ‘GasNZV’).
1 Dirk Uwer is a partner at Hengeler Mueller. The author would like to thank his colleagues Jörg
Meinzenbach, Daniel Zimmer and Carl-Christoph Werkmeister for their invaluable assistance.
2 The shift from a fossil fuel and nuclear-based to a sustainable energy supply based on renewable
energies.
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