E-Control
E-Control is Austria's regulatory authority for electricity and gas. It sets the grid fees and publishes the technical rules for connecting to the grid.
What is E-Control?
Energie-Control Austria, E-Control for short, is the regulatory authority for the electricity and gas sector in Austria. It supervises the market, sets the fees for using the electricity grids by ordinance and publishes the market rules. These include the technical and organisational rules (TOR) that govern how installations are connected to the grid.
Storage projects feel E-Control in two places: in the grid fees, which determine what peak shaving earns, and in the rules under which a battery is connected to the grid.
What matters in practice
- grid fees apply per network area and grid level, and E-Control publishes the current figures
- include announced changes to the fee structure in the economic analysis, because a battery runs through many tariff periods
- the TOR set the framework for the grid connection, and the local grid operator decides the details
- E-Control offers a tariff calculator for comparing energy and grid costs
Practical example
A business plans a battery for peak shaving and calculates with the demand charge on its current grid bill. If the balance between the energy charge and the demand charge shifts, the battery’s earnings change over its whole service life. That is why E-Control’s plans belong in the planning, not just today’s tariff.
The Speichercampus perspective
Speichercampus calculates storage projects with the grid fees of the specific site. E-Control’s rules set the framework, but the business’s own grid bill is what counts.