Tertiäre Regulierung und Nachhaltigkeit

The European Union's Third Energy Package significantly changed the regulatory framework for European electricity transmission in 2009. Previously, regulations for cross-border electricity transmission were agreed on bilaterally through contracts between transmission system operators together with their regulators. Since then, new players have been influencing this field. In a complex institutional structure consisting of the European Commission, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), network codes have been developed to harmonise electricity transmission in Europe. This tertiary regulation is a novelty in the European energy sector. In this work, the development and contents of the codes are examined from the perspective of sustainability science. With the help of an interdisciplinary analysis, the authors examine how (tertiary) regulation is to be evaluated from such a perspective. By means of a literature summary, interviews with experts and an analysis of the actors involved and their interests, the study works out whether tertiary regulation can serve ambitious sustainability goals using the example of the network codes.