EGL appeals against ElCom ruling

EGL Grid AG, a member of the EGL Group, has filed an appeal with the Federal Administrative Court against the ElCom ruling of 6 March 2009 concerning "Costs and tariffs for level 1 grid usage and ancillary services".

This ruling stipulates, among other things, that the eligible capital costs for determining the grid usage tariffs and therefore the tariffs themselves must be lowered considerably. ElCom bases this requirement on the assumption that the grid owners have valued the Swiss grid infrastructure too highly, which has now led to excessively high tariffs for Swiss electricity customers.

Purchase price is defined as acquisition cost
EGL Grid AG emphatically rejects this judgement. It acquired its grid infrastructure from EGL AG in 2001 at the current market price. It was an industry leader in terms of the separation of the grid and the energy business long before the debate over the liberalisation of the Swiss electricity market. EGL Grid AG has always declared the value of this infrastructure transparently and it has been tested every year for impairment by the external auditors as part of the regular audit of the annual results. EGL Grid AG therefore takes the position that the Electricity Supply Act (StromVG) regards this value as the acquisition cost of the grid concerned.

The valuation of the assets of EGL Grid AG by ElCom does not account for this fact, and is disproportionately low. This reduction in the value of its assets jeopardises the financial future of EGL Grid AG due to asset impairment resulting from the one-off depreciation. Restructuring of the company would be unavoidable. In the interests of its owners and of protecting the value of the company, EGL Grid AG must therefore demand a review of ElCom's valuation of its grids.

Grid financed predominantly by international wholesale trading
EGL Grid AG also maintains that its grid infrastructure – in contrast to other parts of the Swiss transmission system – is used primarily for international energy wholesale trading. The costs of operating and maintaining the infrastructure have so far been financed largely by income from the international wholesale trade and not passed on to Swiss end consumers.


Further information

EGL Press Office
Tel. +41 44 749 41 10
media.ch@egl.eu