.

The European energy regulators’ Customers and Retail Markets Working Group (CRM WG) is dedicated to putting the interests of consumers first by promoting customer empowerment and retail market functioning, in order to facilitate the development of competition in the energy consumers’ interests.

In 2012, the CRM WG will continue to be very active in the London Forum and will focus on better engaging with consumer organisations across Europe. It will also closely follow the European Commission’s agenda in the fields related to customer empowerment and smart grids/meters.  Furthermore, the WG will follow the EC legislative work on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and will contribute to CEER’s work on energy efficiency.

In 2012, the CRM WG will work on several deliverables through the Customer Empowerment Task Force (CEM TF) and the Retail Market Functioning Task Force (RMF TF) as well as with a new Strategy & Communication Workstream (SC WS).

The RMC WG has two task forces: 

• Customer Empowerment Task Force (CEM TF), working on retail market issues such as billing, complaint handling, alternative dispute resolution, price comparison tools, protecting vulnerable energy customers, etc. 
• Retail Market Functioning Task Force (RMF TF), working on retail markets with respect to smart metering, monitoring and market design for both electricity and gas markets. The TF focuses on how to empower the energy customer by enhancing competition among stakeholders and increasing the level of choice for customers through designing robust market processes and metering services.