ACM to commission a study into discount for large-scale users of electricity, leaves it unchanged for 2023
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) will maintain the volume discount for large-scale electricity users when setting the tariffs for 2023. This December, ACM will set the 2023 network tariffs for electricity, and has decided to make this announcement already today to give businesses involved certainty about this matter in a timely manner. ACM will have a study carried out into whether a discount for large-scale users is necessary and proportional. On the basis of that study, ACM may decide that the discount will be discontinued starting in 2024.
The discount for large-scale users has been laid down in the Dutch Electricity Act, and is also known as the volume correction scheme (VCR). The scheme ensures that approximately 35 large-scale users receive a discount on the volumes that system operators charge for the transmission of electricity. ACM decided to have a study conducted into the VCR after a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union had revealed that the Dutch legislature should not have enshrined the discount scheme in law. According to the Court of Justice, the legislature cannot set rules for matters over which the national regulator has jurisdiction under European laws. In the Netherlands, that regulator is ACM.
The legislature included the VCR in the Dutch Electricity Act to ensure that the transmission bill for large-scale users better reflects the costs they cause. The legislature’s assumption was that users that continuously consume large volumes of power would cause relatively fewer costs than users that cause many consumption peaks. ACM will commission an external study this year into the question of whether this assumption is correct, and whether, on the basis of the costs, a separate tariff for the group of large-scale users in question is necessary.
So far, ACM has not been able to find sufficient substantiation in the parliamentary history on the basis of which it can permanently introduce a discount scheme. If such a necessity is not revealed by the upcoming external study either, ACM will no longer be able to maintain the discount, and the discount will then be discontinued starting in 2024. If the study does reveal that large-scale users that continuously consume large volumes of electricity cause fewer costs, an amendment to the Tariff Code for electricity will be needed. As the study will not have been completed before system operators submit their tariff proposals for 2023, ACM believes it is desirable to announce already today that it will leave the VCR unchanged for at least the year 2023.