France and Germany will unveil this week a third alternative to the European Commission's energy unbundling measures that would prevent the forced breakup of their power companies, The Financial Times reports.
The European Commission wants large utilities to separate their power transmission lines and pipeline businesses from their power and natural gas generation businesses in order to encourage more competition.
Germany and France have developed a joint proposal that would allow the E.U.'s large utilities to keep their transmission and generation assets in one company, although their management would be strictly separated.
Under the proposal, which is backed by seven other member states, the transmission and generation assets could be owned by one company but would have to be run under separate brands and from distinct headquarters. The network businesses would have to appoint a compliance officer responsible for ensuring unrestricted network access for other companies. Any management changes related to the grid assets would be subject to a veto by the national energy regulators, the newspaper reports.
The regulators would act as trustee for the network. Their powers would include forcing a transmission business to invest in their networks using third-party financing.