CEER Report on Investment Conditions in European Countries

This document presents CEER report on investment conditions 2017 in European countries. High quality regulation is a fundamental requirement for a sound investment climate, which, in itself, is a pre-requisite for an adequate flow of the new investments needed to develop secure, competitive and sustainable energy infrastructure and markets. Predictable independent regulation also helps to reduce regulatory and legal risks for investors, and hence lowers the cost of capital. This report provides a general overview of the regulatory regimes applied in 2017, the required efficiency developments and analyses the overall determination of capital costs in EU Member States and Norway. A major focus is placed on the calculation of an adequate rate of return, the determination of the regulatory asset base (RAB) and the depreciation of assets in the different regulatory regimes. Other important, individual parameters and new incentive mechanisms presented in this study have to be interpreted in the context of a whole country-specific regulatory regime. Some figures only reflect an ex ante approach for 2017, while ex post calculations still are to be executed. This report also serves as a background paper to CEER work on incentives, both in a quantitative as in a qualitative way.