GASPOOL reintroduces control and balancing energy levy

The German GASPOOL natural gas hub is to reintroduce a control and balancing energy levy of €0.09/kWh from October 2014, the hub operators announced on Friday.

The levy, which funds the system balancing requirements of the market area, will apply from 1 October 2014 until 1 April 2015. There has been no levy since last October, but the hub operators said “projections for the balancing gas requirements and associated costs in the coming winter period” showed it had become necessary again.

The more liquid German NCG hub kept its control energy levy at €0.00/kWh for the third time running. The levy is assessed every six months.

NCG’s hub operators said the lack of need for a levy “reflects the development of the system balancing requirements observed in the current gas year, the effective balancing gas procurement model currently in place and the very well functioning balancing regime.”

Conversion fee reduction continues

Although GASPOOL had to reintroduce a control energy levy, it was able to reduce the quality conversion fee between high and low calorific gas. This will be reduced to €0.88/MWh from €1.18/MWh, as part of the phase-out of the conversion fee required by the energy regulator, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA).

NCG kept its conversion fee at €0.40/MWh, which managing director Torsten Frank described as “well below” the BNetzA’s current fee cap of €0.906/MWh. The conversion fee is expected to be completely phased out by October 2016.

GASPOOL also kept its fee for use of the market area’s virtual trading point (VTP) unchanged at €0.20/MWh, while NCG increased its VTP fee slightly to €0.10/MWh from €0.08/MWh. Julie Fisher