Handbook · Version 1.0 · updated 14 October 2026
Digitalising the Energy Transition
On 31 July 2026 the Federal Network Agency put a draft out for consultation: a market communication message called UTILTS was to be replaced by web services1. On 1 October it took that back2. If you had written a plan for the switch to web services in August, you could shelve it.
Two months. In this field that's nothing unusual. So every statement in this book says where it comes from and how firm it is.
The subject is the core of the digital energy transition: metering and control in the low-voltage grid. Eight chapters lead from the legal framework through the smart meter gateway, its certification and the tariff use cases to control under §14a, then to tariffs and grid charges, market communication and, last, the state of the rollout. Heat planning, generation, power markets, redispatch, cybersecurity? Only at the edges. innobu.com has articles on all of them, and the reading paths put those articles in an order that starts with the basics.
Contents of the handbook
Part II: Technology
Devices and architecture: what an intelligent metering system is
From the Ferraris meter to the intelligent metering system: LMN, HAN, WAN and CLS, the control box, the WAN question and how multi-utility metering works.
Read → 3BSI standards, certification and the smart metering PKI
TR-03109 in all parts, protection profiles PP-0073 and PP-0077, dual certification, gateway administration and the smart metering PKI, status 2026.
Read →Part III: Functions and control
Tariff use cases: TAF 1 to 16 and version 2.0
Every tariff use case of the smart meter gateway: what TAF 1 to 16 do, what versions 1.1 and 2.0 changed, and why §14a control doesn't need TAF 11.
Read → 5Grid-oriented control under §14a EnWG
§14a EnWG without the myths: curative control with a transition rule to 2028, the 4.2 kW minimum, the control chain via CLS, modules 1 to 3.
Read → 6Dynamic tariffs and grid charges in transition
Section 41a EnWG for every supplier, which TAF a dynamic tariff needs, AgNes from 2029 and the MiSpeL determination: what is changing now.
Read →Part IV: Market and practice
Market communication: how meter readings become processes
MaKo 2026 with EDIFACT, AS4 and APIs, why UTILTS stays, the 24-hour supplier switch, quarter-hour settlement, the MaBiS hub and the section 54 MsbG form.
Read → 8Rollout practice: figures, supervision and what nobody measures
The smart meter rollout in figures: corrected BNetzA statistics, 434 supervisory proceedings, the barometer that never returned and data that does not exist.
Read →Appendices
The model: from the meter to the billing system
Click through the chain from the meter to the billing system and follow a meter reading or a control command step by step.
Open →Reading paths through ten topic fields
Reading paths through ten topic fields of the energy transition: grid, metering, market communication, generation, markets, flexibility, heat, sales, cyber, IT.
Open →Open questions and negative findings
Data nobody collects, contradictions between sources and terms without evidence. A separate appendix, because honest gaps are worth more than estimated figures.
Open →Who this book is for
Managing directors, heads of grid and IT, and programme leads at utilities, grid operators and metering point operators who have a deadline to implement and need more than a press release for it. Regulatory management and IT architecture too.
It isn't legal advice. When your organisation has a decision to make, the wording of the determination is what counts, and the footnotes take you there.
How evidence is marked
Every figure, date and file reference has a footnote with a retrieval date. Authorities, legislators and courts come first. Where a statement rests on manufacturer information or trade press, the footnote says so.
The coloured boxes in the text show how solid a statement is:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Legally binding | written in the law or in a determination |
| Technical standard | technical guideline, protection profile or norm |
| Industry practice | how the market does it, without being required to |
| Recommendation | innobu's assessment, marked as such |
| Forecast | expected development, not decided |
| Not firmly established | thin or ambiguous sources |
| Negative finding | searched for and not found |
| Conflicting sources | two sources say different things, both are cited |
Why it also lists what doesn't exist
How many gateways in the field actually deliver grid status data? There's no figure. And there's no BSI certification yet for control straight from the gateway.
Both are in the book anyway. A gap with a name on it does less harm than an estimate that shows up as fact in the next slide deck. These points are collected in the appendix "Open questions and negative findings".
How the book stays current
The deadlines at the end of each chapter come from this website's deadline calendar and are read in again every night, as are the articles in the reading paths. The chapter text is a different matter: a person checks it. That's why each chapter carries its own review date, and why the whole book gets a review once a year, by 31 January. By the end of 2028 larger parts of it will be history, and that's when a second edition gets decided on.
Reading paths by topic field
Reading paths through ten topic fields of the energy transition: grid, metering, market communication, generation, markets, flexibility, heat, sales, cyber, IT.
The next deadlines
Live from the deadline calendar, data as of 14 October 2026. When a deadline changes, this list changes with it.
The handbook as a PDF
The same chapters as a print-ready PDF with contents, page numbers and sources. Free, no registration.
Sources
- Federal Network Agency, ruling chambers 6 and 7: notice no. 57 on data formats, 31 July 2026, consultation for the 1 April 2027 implementation date (German). bundesnetzagentur.de, retrieved 14 October 2026.
- Federal Network Agency, ruling chamber 6: notice no. 58 on data formats, 1 October 2026, referring to the consultation of 31 July 2026 (German). bundesnetzagentur.de, retrieved 14 October 2026.