Grids
Demographic change, altered political and legal frameworks and connected shifts in energy generation and consumption structures are topics that have a strong impact on the business of grid operators nowadays. Especially in the regulated (power, gas), but also the non-regulated grid sectors (water/waste-water, local heat/district heat) operators have to orientate more and more towards competition in the future.
In the area of power and gas grids the outside control on grid operations (interests of shareholders, EU-political influence and regulations) has increased since the implementation of the new energy economy law in July 2005: High follow-up costs result from the realisation of unbundling regulations that create a substantial cost pressure on the classic trade of grid capacities in combination with the regulation of grid access charges. Massive salary cutbacks of up to 20 percent in the power sector and up to 30 percent in the gas sector create insecurities among grid operators that are indicated, amongst other things, by the announcements of postponements of planned investments in non-regulated areas. Next to the salary admissions and its consequences, the design of an incentive based regulation probably replacing a cost based regulation in 2009 as well as the realisation of a grid access model for gas largely define the circumstances for grid operators. While the salary regulation and the related incentive based regulation are concerned with the raise of efficiency of grid operators, the gas market model, based on the new grid access enactment, should allow for transparency, a simplified grid access and a simplification of supplier changes for the household customer as well.
Power and gas grid operators are forced to operational and strategic modifications by these developments. Therefore, raising of synergies, benchmarking and efficiency improvement are keywords that currently dominate the branch. Different strategies are pursued: In addition to cooperation in the grid sector, especially hitherto internal services, e.g. maintenance or operation of the grid are offered to external companies. Closeness to the customer as well as long-lasting experience of the operation of grids offer good prospects to enter the market or to extend this business sector especially to large grid operators with sufficient personal resources. Favoured by the possibility of a site network operation a competition for grid customers unfolds parallel, that is performed at service and wheeling level and puts the development of an "active" grid distribution in the foreground of strategic considerations.
Despite the current and, due to the incentive based regulation, probably rising cost pressure in the grid the operators face inevitable comprehensive investments into the grid infrastructure. In order to guarantee a reliable power supply in the face of increasing feedings of decentralised generation sites (especially wind energy on- and offshore) investments in the construction and expansion of grids are planned on a federal level. Altogether, the power and gas grid operators have to deal with an area of conflict between requirements of competition and regulations as well as reliability of supply that forces them to restructure their core business and evaluate investment and distribution strategies, revenue calculation and cost management within the grid area.
The grid sectors of water/waste-water and local heat/district heat that are unaffected by regulations are largely dependent on the political framework and governmental aid in the future. The grid sector of district heat for example might play a major role in achieving the environmental goals of the federal government because of the potential for saving CO2 emissions. This is equally true for the multitude of local heat grids in the industry as well as in residential or commercial areas that are fed by decentralised energy generation facilities (e.g. block heat and power plants)
The trend of a further liberalisation and privatisation can not be stopped in the field of water supply and disposal. This advances the increasing outsourcing of grid services (e.g. technical operation, maintenance) to external third parties.
