The Federal Network Agency has surprisingly gotten involved in the ongoing dispute regarding the rules for using electric cars as energy storage. On Thursday, the regulatory body in Bonn plans to officially release the lengthy document, “Specification for the Market Integration of Storage and Charging Stations” (MisPel), which spans over 200 pages. According to reports from the “Handelsblatt”, this final draft includes three critical amendments.
Klaus Müller, head of the Federal Network Agency, stated to the newspaper that “All stakeholders want the same thing: to integrate electromobility simply, quickly, and easily into the power market.” Following discussions over the past few days, the agency reviewed and revised the regulatory framework.
In these changes, the Federal Network Agency is accommodating many of the automotive industry’s criticisms. The agency’s chief assured that, with the modifications, electric cars-specifically their charging points-will be treated as energy storage devices “everywhere possible.” Moving forward, the so-called “delineation option” can utilize a single smart meter without requiring a separate solar array. Furthermore, for the simplified “lump-sum option,” the security margin-a buffer zone used for exemption from surcharges, grid fees, and other charges, which the industry had strongly resisted-has been reduced from the originally planned factor of 0.5 to 0.2.
However, Müller also noted that the industry is now tasked with bringing vehicles, bidirectional charging capabilities, and wallboxes into the market, thus genuinely enabling flexibility.
