The Energy Law defines the service attributes of energy. Comprehensive energy services cater to the historical trend.

On April 10, the National Energy Administration issued the "Energy Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft for Comments)", which means that after three years of revision, China's first energy law is about to be promulgated.

Li Junfeng, executive director of the China Energy Research Society, said in an interview with Nengjian recently that the introduction of the "Energy Law" is to adapt to the requirements of the new era and to fix the basic energy policies, concepts, guidelines and systems that meet the requirements of the new era in the form of law.

What are the characteristics of energy development in the new era? Li Junfeng believes that the draft for comments has three major changes in the positioning of energy development in the new era. First, it recognizes the commodity attributes of energy; second, it makes it clear that it must keep up with the trend of the times of clean, low-carbon and digitalization; third, it emphasizes the "universal service" of energy.

The commodity attribute of energy refers to the marketization of energy, its clean and low-carbon nature refers to the continued promotion of the development of the renewable energy industry, and digitalization refers to the deep integration of energy with the new generation of information technology represented by cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, mobility and intelligence. However, the term universal service is relatively unfamiliar to many people.

Article 12 of the draft for comments states that the state will improve the universal energy service mechanism to ensure that citizens have access to basic energy supply and services. Article 58 states that enterprises responsible for the supply of electricity and other energy should fulfill their corresponding universal service obligations in accordance with relevant national regulations.

What is universal service? Li Junfeng said that universal service is the first time it has been written into the law, and it corresponds to commercialization. When energy was not commercialized and the state regulated it, there was no universal service, and providing energy services was the government's responsibility. Now that energy supply and demand need to be marketized, universal service needs to be guaranteed.

From this perspective, for energy, a product that has both market-based commodity and public utility attributes, it is necessary to emphasize service.

The word "service" appears more than 30 times in the entire draft for comments. Articles 54, 55 and 56 respectively clarify the principles that energy companies should follow in service standards, supply requirements and information disclosure.

Article 55 stipulates that enterprises responsible for the supply of energy such as electricity, gas and heat shall ensure that users within their business areas have access to safe, continuous and reliable energy supply services, and shall not refuse or interrupt energy supply services without statutory or agreed reasons.

Simply put, for energy companies, once you enter this market, you cannot provide services whenever you want or not whenever you don’t want to. The law will restrict your code of conduct.

Article 109 of the draft for soliciting opinions clearly states that if an enterprise that undertakes the obligation of universal energy service arbitrarily interrupts or stops performing its universal service obligations, the energy regulatory department shall order it to correct the situation; if it causes economic losses to users, the responsible party shall be fined not less than one times and not more than two times the amount of the losses; if it constitutes a crime, criminal liability shall be pursued in accordance with the law.

There is currently no authoritative and unified definition of integrated energy services. It is generally believed that it mainly includes integrated energy supply and integrated energy services. Relatively speaking, energy supply is an old concept, and energy service is a new concept. For traditional energy companies that are transforming into integrated energy services, generally speaking, providing good supply is their strength, while providing good service is their weakness.

In the future, if integrated energy service providers want to win the market competition, service capabilities will become the main competitive advantage. The current development of the integrated energy service market is forcing market participants to gradually enhance their service thinking, which will gradually enable them to adapt to future energy market competition.

The "Energy Law" will further restore the commodity value of energy and set the tone for the service attributes of energy. The integrated energy service industry can be said to cater to the general trend and historical development trend of the promulgation of the "Energy Law". After the formal promulgation of this bill, the integrated energy service market will be further regulated. It is very important for market participants to understand this development trend and make arrangements as early as possible.