System charges

The system charges are the amounts that system operators are allowed to charge to their customers for the system services they render. They are made up of the following components:

  • the system utilisation charge, which covers the cost incurred by system operators in constructing, expanding, maintaining and operating their networks;
  • the charge for system losses, which compensates system operators for the costs they incur in procuring the energy they need to cover grid losses;
  • the metering charge, which compensates system operators for the costs directly related to the installation and operation of metering equipment – if system users provide their metering equipment themselves, this charge is reduced correspondingly;
  • the system provision charge, which makes up for costs incurred by system operators when building and expanding the different network levels so that connection of individual facilities becomes possible in the first place;
  • the charge for system services, which is designed to cover the costs incurred by control area managers in relation to the requirement to offset load variations by means of secondary control;
  • the system admission charge, which compensates system operators for the costs directly arising from connecting a facility to a system for the first time or altering a connection to account for a system user’s increased connection capacity; and
  • supplementary service charges, which include regulated rates e.g. for payment reminders, extra meter readings and meter checks etc.

E-Control’s Regulation Commission sets amounts or ceilings for the above charges and lays them down in the Systemnutzungsentgelte-Verordnung (System Charges Ordinance).

For more information, please consult our German pages, where we provide details about each of the above components and you can download charts that compare the amounts of system charges at the different network levels. There is also background information about the full genesis of our regulatory regime’s tarification principles.