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Smartening up while keeping safe? Advances in smart metering and data protection under EU law

Integrating increasing shares of renewable electricity generation within the European Union electricity market requires that the electricity system is capable of withstanding intermittency. One of the principal means of achieving this is by activating the demand side in such a way as to enable a more flexible balance between demand and supply. In practice, initiatives and technological solutions to activate the demand side are well exemplified by smart meters, which collect and communicate information on electricity consumption. The existing legal framework and the 2016 legislative proposals for the electricity sector recognise that significant opportunities exist to utilise consumer data collected via smart metering and that these are of fundamental importance in creating more flexibility in the electricity market. However, the extensive utilisation of this data also raises questions concerning data privacy and data protection. This article examines the interface between data protection and energy law in the EU. The focus of the legal analysis is on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the proposed rules contained in the Winter Package, which are systematically analysed to determine the conditions under which smart metering data can be utilised to further the objectives of EU energy law. The underlying argument of the article is that there is an apparent conflict between the objectives embedded in EU data protection law and those embedded in EU energy law. EU energy law addresses smart metering and the resulting data as means of achieving a more sustainable electricity system that benefits the final consumer. Conversely, EU data protection rules focus on the protection of a fundamental right and perceive the collection and processing of data as a risk to the very same consumer that is considered to benefit from smart metering data under EU energy law. This article demonstrates how this apparent conflict can be reconciled through interpretation of the relevant rules of EU law.