Electricity Market Design: Deadline for transposing new rules into national law

Today (17 January 2025) is the deadline for EU Member States to transpose the new Electricity Market design rules into national law, namely the new provisions of the amending Directive EU/2024/1711. Devised in the wake of the surge in energy prices and agreed by the Member States and the European Parliament last year, the new rules are aimed at making energy prices for consumers more stable and less dependent on the price of fossil fuels.

This is an important step towards making energy bills more predictable, ensuring better consumer protection and addressing the competitiveness of EU industry and comes ahead of the Clean Industrial Deal which the Commission is due to publish in the coming weeks (within 100 days of taking office).

The Directive was adopted last year alongside the amending Regulation EU/2024/1747. With these electricity market reforms, Member States now have to implement national measures to ensure the following:

• energy costs which are more reflective of (cheaper) renewable energy and also more predictable.
• a wider choice of consumer contracts and clearer information before signing contracts
• an option to lock in secure, long-term prices
• dynamic pricing contracts, if needed, to take advantage of price variability to use electricity when it is cheaper
• protection from being without electricity through the establishment of suppliers of last resort
• protection from disconnection for those who are vulnerable or energy poor
• more opportunities for energy sharing, for example,tenants will be able to share surplus rooftop solar power with a neighbour