“Market power of large utilities has decreased significantly”
Federal Network Agency / Federal Cartel Office
The market power of Germany’s four large electricity suppliers has decreased significantly over the past years, according to the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) and the Federal Cartel Office’s Monitoring Report 2016 on the developments in the German electricity and gas markets. For the report year 2015, other findings include:
- Total power generation increased slightly to 594.7 terawatt hours, while generation from conventional fuels decreased
- Conventional power generation capacity has increased, mainly due to the long-term nature of realising power plant projects
- German power exports increased by 14.9 percent to 68 terawatt hours and were significantly higher than imports (17 terawatt hours)
- The average yearly downtime per customer at 12.7 minutes was below the current ten-year average (2006 – 2015: 15.87 min)
- Re-dispatch measures amounted to a total of 16,000 gigawatt hours (more than three times 2014 level) and cost 412 million euros
- The sum of all grid and system security measures (feed-in management, re-dispatch, reserve power plants, counter trading) in 2015 comes to 1.133 billion euros (2014: 436 million euros)
- Average wholesale power prices decreased by 3 percent, compared to 2014, to 31.63 euros per megawatt hour
- Grid expansion continues to be delayed: of the planned 1,800 kilometres most crucial high voltage power lines, 650 kilometres have been realised (35 percent)
Find the BNetzA press release in German here and the full report in German here.
For background read the CLEW dossiers Utilities and the energy transition and The energy transition and Germany’s power grid.
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