AGGM Austrian Gas Grid Management

AGGM Austrian Gas Grid Management AG
legal form	Corporation
founding	2003
Seat	Vienna , Austria
management	Edwin Kaufmann (board member) ; Bernhard Painz (board member)
Number of employees	40
Branch	Natural gas supply, gas network operation
Website	www.aggm.at

The AGGM Austrian Gas Grid Management AG is since June 1, 2017 includes market area manager in the Austrian gas market area East, which all provinces except Tyrol and Vorarlberg. In this function, which she took over from Gas Connect Austria GmbH (GCA), she is responsible for the management of the international gas transit lines (long-distance lines) that currently run exclusively through Eastern Austria. There are no pipelines in the federal states of Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Therefore, in accordance with the provisions of the Gas Management Act, no market area manager has been appointed for them. In addition, AGGM has been the so-called distribution area manager in Austria since 2013 . As such, it ensures that all natural gas consumers throughout Germany can be supplied with the quantities of natural gas they require from their respective supplier. AGGM controls the flow of natural gas in those gas pipelines in which the gas is distributed nationwide within Austria ("distribution pipeline systems of network level 1"). It thus plays a central role in the functioning of the natural gas market in Austria. The seat of the AGGM Florido Tower in Vienna's district of Floridsdorf .

Tasks and goals of the market area manager and the distribution area manager

The AGGM fulfills the tasks assigned to it in accordance with Sections 14 and 18 of the Gas Management Act 2011 (GWG 2011) and the tasks assigned to it in accordance with the Energy Management Act. As an Austrian company based in Vienna, AGGM is committed to the liberalization of the Austrian natural gas market in accordance with the GWG 2011 and takes corporate responsibility accordingly.

As a market area manager, she ensures that all market participants have access to the virtual trading point under the same conditions and can thus trade natural gas in Austria and transport the gas through Austria. Another important task in this function is the creation of an expansion plan for the transmission lines (coordinated network development plan, KNEP) for the next 10 years, which must be updated annually. In doing so, AGGM relies on the forecasts of the operators of the pipelines about the future transport capacities required and on its own forecasts of gas demand in Austria.

As a distribution area manager, AGGM monitors and stabilizes the distribution area, i.e. that part of the Austrian gas network that supplies Austria. One of their most important obligations is the granting of "network access" as part of capacity management. As part of the "network access", AGGM, in close cooperation with the distribution network operators, enables natural gas suppliers to feed their customers natural gas into the supra-regional gas network within Austria and to take the gas they require from the network.

In addition, the Gas Management Act obliges the AGGM to draw up a long-term plan (LFP) for the expansion of the distribution line systems of network level 1 within the next 10 years. The LFP must be updated annually and must be approved by the regulatory authority Energie-Control Austria AG (E-Control or ECA). When drawing up the LFP, AGGM works closely with Gas Connect Austria , which is responsible for the international gas transit lines (long-distance lines), and the distribution network operators who manage the regional natural gas networks in the individual federal states.

Another important task of the AGGM is crisis management in bottleneck situations. Such situations can arise, among other things, in the event of natural disasters, but also if gas supplies from abroad are restricted or interrupted over a long period for technical or other reasons.

history

In June 1998 the first directive of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union to create an EU-wide market for natural gas was issued. Gradually, in the course of this market opening and liberalization, all natural gas customers should be able to freely choose their gas supplier. A strict separation of gas traders and gas network operators has provided the basis for a competitive market since October 1, 2002. Since the supply of natural gas is only possible via pipeline networks, it was necessary to outsource the control of these networks to neutral companies that act independently of a specific gas supplier.

For this reason, the then OMV Erdgas GmbH (now Gas Connect Austria GmbH) set up AGGM Austrian Gas Grid Management AG. It started its independent operations on January 1, 2003 and was responsible for managing the supra-regional gas transports within Austria in the so-called "Eastern control zone" (all of Austria with the exception of Tyrol and Vorarlberg) and for controlling the necessary Austrian pipelines. In this function, AGGM was the so-called "control area manager" in the control area east.

In the years that followed, the EU Commission came to the conclusion that stricter rules were necessary to ensure that competition on the gas market would function. It therefore issued two further directives for the liberalization of the gas market, most recently in 2009 with the “3. Internal Energy Market Package ". The provisions contained therein were mainly implemented in Austria with the amendment to the Gas Industry Act in 2011.

This brought a number of changes for the Austrian gas market. The most important of these is the switch to an " Entry Exit Model " since January 1st, 2013. This gas market model provides that a gas supplier no longer has to reserve the necessary line capacity on all gas lines up to the customer to transport the gas quantities required by the customer. It is sufficient to reserve this capacity at those points where he feeds the gas into the Austrian pipeline system and where his customers take it from the pipeline system.

In the course of the conversion of the gas market model in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, the area of responsibility of the AGGM was also extended to these two federal states, so that the AGGM is now responsible as the Austrian distribution area manager for the entire Austrian federal territory. In cooperation with the German and Austrian energy market regulatory authorities as well as the regional gas network operators in Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Germany, AGGM implemented the “entry-exit model” for the first time in Europe across national borders.

AGGM implemented a similar model on October 1, 2016 for the gas supply to Liechtenstein and the eastern Swiss canton of Graubünden.

Since the current Gas Management Act came into force in 2011, there have been discussions about combining the functions of the market area manager and the distribution area manager in the market area East in one company. At the beginning of 2017, the transmission system operators GAS CONNECT AUSTRIA GmbH and Trans-Austria Gasleitung GmbH named AGGM as market area manager. The official approval from the regulatory authority Energie-Control Austria (E-Control) took place in spring 2017.