🤔 As the European Institutions reached agreements on the reforms of the Gas Directive and of the Electricity Market Design you may be wondering what this means for consumers.
❗ The answer is lots of new protections and new possibilities to engage in energy markets, often result of years - sometimes decades - of advocacy efforts!
Just to make some examples:
1️⃣ Vulnerable and energy poor consumers will enjoy new, strong protections against electricity and gas disconnections. BEUC - The European Consumer Organisation has been advocating for it for over two decades and it is great to see the EU taking concrete steps!
2️⃣ Unilateral changes and terminations of fixed price electricity contracts will be banned. BEUC has been advocating for banning unilateral changes of electricity contracts since 2013, and after 10 years we finally see positive developments!
3️⃣ Consumers will have access to always updated comparison tools covering the entire gas market, as suppliers will be required to provide them complete and up-to-date information on their offers. Today, there are only very few comparison tools that feature all available offers, which means that consumers risk missing out on good deals. BEUC has been advocating to address this issue since at least since 2012.
4️⃣ Consumers will always be able to sign up for fixed electricity price contracts, protecting them from price fluctuations in wholesale markets, as there are new requirements on suppliers.
And there is a lot more, such as rules allowing consumers to share the energy produced by their solar panels with their peers, or allowing them to have a separate contract rewarding the flexible electricity consumption of their heat pump or of their electric vehicle, while they have a fixed price contract for the rest of their consumption.
Of course big thanks to those who contributed to achieving these important goals across all the European institutions. To name a few: Thor-Sten Vertmann, Anne Weidenbach, Catharina Sikow, Adela Tesarova, Nicolás González Casares, Michael Bloss, Morten Helveg Petersen, Maria Da Graça Carvalho, Rebeka Maršnjak, Pablo Pintos Touriño, Lena Kaiser, but there are many more.
Kristian Ruby Charlotte RENAUD Savannah Altvater James Watson Andreas Guth Lucia Verardi Natalie McCoy Stella Benfatto Blandine Malvault Rita Mota Alain Taccoen Marine Cornelis
