Imagine a manufacturer who who consumes 595 MWh yearly. He sleeps well since convinced that REMIT itself, REMIT registration and operationally burdensome REMIT transactions and orders reporting are beyond the scope of his affairs. And suddenly somebody comes and says, "You have serious legal problems, you are not credible business partner". What's the point?
Firstly, the said manufacturer did not take into account, the 600 GWh threshold for final customers under REMIT does not relate to the actual load but to the maximum possible electricity consumption.
It doesn't matter that the manufacturer at issue in all records of his factory never achieved that level of yearly electricity consumption - instead of looking at electricity bills he must look into the technical documentation of his facilities.
For example, ironworks consuming in fact 400 GWh yearly, but potentially able to consume 605 GWh need to register with the national regulatory authority as a wholesale energy market participant and report transactions entered into the electricity market.
If the maximum capacity of your factory is above the said level, remember - there is the legal obligation to inform your counterparties to the electricity contracts of this fact.
The lesson to be learnt from this case: verify the technical documentation of your facilities to establish whether you have something in common with the REMIT!
The penalties for REMIT breaches are set at national level, but they are sufficiently high to deter any non-compliance.
When we are sure that the technical documentation of our factory is beyond doubt we can shift our attention to another area of interest.
Suppose, our hypothetical manufacturer checked the technical manuals of his plants and relaxed, as everything occurred to be correct (maximum capacity below 600 GWh).
Does he still need to bother with REMIT?
I suggest to make a small inventory and make sure whether the aforementioned ironworks are the only facility under control.
Here is another trap in the REMIT design - while for REMIT registration and REMIT reporting the maximum capacity of individual facilities are relevant, for other REMIT requirements, like inside information disclosures as well as prohibitions of insider trading and market manipulation, the capacity of all facilities under control in the EU must be added.
Hence, our nervous manufacturer in order to sleep well needs to recollect if he owns (controls) any other facilities in any EU country.
Is the inventory still below 600 GWh? Well, after these two small checks I think he can relax, eventually.