Market area (natural gas)

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A market area in the natural gas industry comprises the supply area of ​​one or more transmission system operators . Gas that has been fed into a market area can be delivered at a uniform price to any extraction point in the same market area and can therefore be traded between market participants via a so-called virtual trading point .

background

Within a market area, a gas supplier must always feed the relevant networks the amount of gas that he or his customers withdraw from the networks, without the withdrawn amount being the same physical gas supplied by the gas supplier; to this end, a so-called balancing process takes place, through which the supplier balances feeds and feeds into the network. This means that a shipper or trader always holds a certain amount of gas within a market area, which can also be freely traded.

Within a market area there are a large number of balancing groups , through which all the trading volumes brought in are settled. The balancing groups thus represent the traders or shippers active in a market area. In each balancing group there is a balancing group manager who concludes a balancing group contract with the market area manager in order to regulate the compensation and settlement of deviations between the gas quantities fed in and out . External control energy can be required to compensate for physical differences between feed-in and feed-out. Balancing group managers are responsible for the balanced management of the balancing groups and thus primarily for avoiding the need for control energy. Any balancing energy demand that arises in spite of this is balanced centrally and non-discriminatory through corresponding purchases and sales by market area managers (MGVs).

Gas is transported within a market area by specifying entry and exit quantities and points ( entry-exit system ). Fees are charged for the use of the gas networks, which are independent of the distance of the entry and exit points. Entry and exit capacities are booked for network access. To make this possible, network operators are obliged to announce free capacities on the Internet. In addition, entry and exit points between which the gas can be transported must be named. At these points, the network operators must offer entry and exit capacities that can be used independently of each other without the shipper having to commit to a specific, transaction-dependent transport path.

Market areas in Austria

Austria has been divided into three market areas since 2013:

  • Market area east (includes the federal states of Salzburg, Carinthia, Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Styria, Burgenland and Vienna)
  • Tirol market area
  • Vorarlberg market area

Tyrol and Vorarlberg are connected to one another and are supplied via the German pipeline network. They are not connected to the gas network in the east market area, which has its own pipeline network.

Market areas in Germany

Market area interconnection capacities as well as border interconnection capacities to neighboring countries are scarce in Germany and can lead to disruptions in trade between the market areas, so that prices for natural gas vary in the respective areas. In particular, under pressure from the Federal Network Agency , which wanted to promote price transparency and the liquidity of the gas market, the number of market areas has been steadily reduced in recent years, from over 40 market areas in 2006 to two today.

The two market areas that currently exist in Germany are Gaspool , in North, West and East Germany, and NetConnect Germany , in West and South Germany, consisting of the supply areas of the following network operators:

In 2018 Gaspool and Netconnect announced that they would merge their market areas on October 1, 2021. Both companies are obliged to do this under the new gas network access ordinance.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Energy 2011: Competitive development with light and shadow. Special report by the Monopolies Commission in accordance with Section 62 (1) EnWG . Special report 59, p. 102 ff . ( monopolkommission.de [PDF; 6.7 MB ; accessed on February 15, 2013]).
  2. ↑ Thorsten Czechanowsky: Date setting: Gas market areas will merge on October 1, 2021. energate-messenger.de, June 28, 2018, accessed on February 17, 2020 .