EU opens infringement cases against 18 states over the right to share energy
Victoria Shinder2 min readThe European Commission has sent letters of formal notice to 18 member states that have not reported fully enacting the right to energy sharing and related consumer rules from the EU's electricity market reform, pv magazine reports. The countries are Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden. They had until 17 July 2026 to transpose the relevant provisions of Directive (EU) 2024/1711.
The other nine, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, Austria, Portugal and Slovakia, were not part of this round. The Commission has not said whether each of them has fully transposed the directive, and it has not yet assessed whether any national rules conform to it: the letters concern failure to notify transposition, not the substance of national law.
Under the new Article 15a, households, small and medium-sized businesses and public bodies may share renewable electricity they generate or store with other customers within the same bidding zone, or within a smaller area if a member state so decides. The shared electricity is deducted from participants' metered consumption when suppliers calculate the energy part of their bills, and participants can appoint a third-party organiser to run the arrangement.
National approaches already differ. Germany's energy sharing under Section 42c of its Energy Industry Act started on 1 June, although community energy groups have called the rules half-hearted. Spain and France, both among the 18, already had collective self-consumption regimes; Spain extended the maximum distance for shared self-consumption to 5 kilometres in March. The 18 states now have two months to reply. If the Commission is not satisfied, it can issue a reasoned opinion, the second stage of proceedings, which can end in a referral to the Court of Justice. The Commission also wrote to 26 member states over the recast hydrogen and decarbonised gas directive, whose 5 August deadline only Italy met.
What it means
A letter of formal notice is the routine first step and says little about intent. What it does show is that two-thirds of the bloc missed a date for a consumer right that was meant to let neighbours trade rooftop output. Until the national rules exist, the right in Article 15a exists only on paper.