“In the end the customer pays”

Katherina Reiche, managing director of the municipal utility association VKU wants the government to establish better conditions for local utilities and keep an eye on the cost efficiency of the energy transition and security of supply in Germany, she told Der Tagesspiegel in an interview. Introducing several reserves to secure power supply was leading to more regulation and less competition. In the end the customer would pay for it, Reiche argued. Regarding the digitalisation of the energy transition, e.g. by introducing smart meters, Reiche called for local utilities to run these new data systems, instead of establishing a new parallel structure run by transmission grid operators, as the government currently plans.

Read the interview in German here.