PowerPointesitys

1
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services
ECMWF Budgetary Cost and Expected Revenue ECMWF
Budget funded by the Member States 40 million
p.a. Projected revenue (cost/benefit study1)
800 - 1000 million p.a. Actual revenue
collected by the NMSs in 2003 0.460 million  
Conclusion The actual revenue for ECMWF data in
2003 is less than 0.5 of the originally
projected benefits.
1) The original cost/benefit study performed in
1971 as part of the overall plan (Doc. COST
138/71 with Annexes), with M. Hipp (Germany) in
charge concluded that the cost/benefit ratio of
the Centre would be in the range 120 - 125, on
the basis that the six day forecasts of the
European Centre to be established would be about
as good as two-day forecasts at the time (in
reality this was a rather accurate prediction)
2
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services
Overview of ECMWF Data Volumes and Related Costs

Volume/day ECOMET-cost/year/distributor Total
Operational Data Set 32 250 MB
50.757 million Data accessible to each NMS
32 250 MB 50.757 million Data actually used
by NMSs Not known 0.145
million1) Average volume used by PMSs 6 MB
0.020 million 1) ECOMET-defined max.
fee however, with full and flexible data access
by (only) the NMSs, the full cost of 50.757
million would be more appropriate   Overview of
Corresponding US (NOAA/NCEP) Data  
Volume/day
Cost/year Operational Data Set 20 000
MB freely available Data accessible to
NMSs 20 000 MB 0 Data
actually used by NMSs Not known
0 Average volume used by PMSs 2 700
MB 0
3
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services
Result Public Data Policy destroys the value and
significance of European investments in RD
NCEP / USA Archives Price for example dataset 1
500
ECMWF Archives Price for similar dataset 750
000
On-line data annual price 0
On-line data annual price 50 000 000
Dedicated line to NMS Price for commercial
use Restrictions of re-use
Internet free download no restrictions
NMS
NMS
NMS
PMS
PMS
Licence to use with NMS Heavy annual
price Restrictions of re-use
PMS
PMS
PMS
PMS service production Europeans receive
services based on NCEP 99,23 , ECMWF 0,13
4
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services

• Potential Impact of PSI Directive (1)
• in principle already EU and national Competition
  Law should guarantee a level playing field in the
  European meteorological market place
• in practice the state meteorological services in
  countries such as Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
  Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Poland, Spain
  and Sweden are in systematic breach of
  Competition Law, most of the time without being
  challenged by competition authorities
•  

5
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services

• Potential Impact of PSI Directive (2)
• the primary problems in this respect are
• (1) that the public and commercial entities
  of the state agencies are using the same
  premises, making it impossible to avoid
  cross-subsidization
• (2) that only these commercial units have
  privileged access to the enormously
  valuable data sets held by the
  meteorological services without paying
  full compensation for the data, and finally
• (3) that the analytical accounts specified
  in the Comfort Letter are not kept by the
  public agencies, or in any case not being
  made publicly available.

6
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services
Potential Impact of PSI Directive (3) In general
it is to be expected that the PSI Directive will
make little difference in the meteorological
market place, in some cases because the Directive
is not known and in others because it even if
known willl be largely ignored. However, in
some cases the Directive could lead to reduced
charges. A prime example are the ECOMET
distribution costs of typically 10-20 e.g. for
the total ECMWF data set costing 145 000 p.a.
where they could not honestly be justified as
specified in the PSI Directive.
7
PRIMET - Association of Private Meteorological
Services

• Suggested Remedies
• The current problems associated with the
  application of
• Competition Law should be gradually removed by
  the design and implementation of flexible PSI
  data servers for all users
• However, as the implementation of PSI data
  servers throughout the EU would take up to 10
  years, making all European environmental data
  freely available from an early date, in line with
  US policy, would substantially increase Europes
  competivity.