13. Toward Competitive and Innovative Energy Service Markets: How to Establish a Level Playing Field for New Entrants and Established Players?

By integrating a communications system with the traditional energy system, smart grids provide end-to-end connectivity. This enables all entities and components integrated in the energy supply system to exchange information bi-directionally. New transformative and sustainable services that will improve and optimize the use of electricity depend on the availability of a smart grid communication network. In an end-to-end smart grid, the current communications gap between consumers’ premises and the remaining energy network is bridged by an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). Given the current liberalized electricity markets’ structure, local incumbents will control the AMI and the meter data. This gives rise to concerns about anti-competitiveness. We argue that leveraging the AMI in a social welfare maximizing way requires non-discriminatory access to the (1) AMI and the (2) meter data through (3) interoperable standards. We discuss regulatory remedies to ensure a level playing field for innovative services in smart grids and consider implications for research and regulation.