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Issue title:

New gas fired power plants

Publication date:
07.06.2018
In this issue:

May was not really a busy month. I used the opportunity to have a closer look at the BDEW “power plants list” in the topic of the month. It is the list with the new power plant projects. According to this list, there are projects for new gas-fired power plants with a total capacity of 9.640 MW. But according to my own assessment, only projects with a capacity of 2,420 MW will be built. The list contains a number of projects that were abandoned. On the other hand, I found three likely projects with a capacity of roughly 1,000 MW that are not on the list. However, the actual project pipeline does not seem very full – but read about it yourself.

Market Rumours

Not much is currently to be heard about gas sales in the segments of industrial users and utilities. “Many things are changing”, one market participant commented. ener|gate Gasmarkt reported about ENI’s and Engie’s exit from the commodity sales business. Allegedly, Engie allocated the more interesting customers to its trading arm before it offered the rest for sale. “Engie trading is very active in the business with utilities where it is close to trading and is standardised”, one source said. What did not change is that Wingas and Uniper are mentioned by most market participants as active suppliers. Over the last weeks, Gas Natural was mentioned by some market participants. “They currently make very attractive offers”, one source said. But this is true only in the segment of medium-sized industrial gas users. In the utility segment, the Spanish company is not a promising counter party, according to sources. VNG is currently quite happy with its sales development in the utility sector and market participants confirm that VNG is among the active suppliers. Gas- Union is much more cautious. In the past, the Frankfurt-based gas company offered utilities very good prices for trading products but was also active in the industrial sector. Whether OMV is on track to reach its target market share of ten per cent in Germany cannot be assessed. However, a market participant said that they are currently one of the most aggressive players in the utility sector. Still in the market with decent efforts is also Bayerngas. What is remarkable too, is that deals of the suppliers among oneanother are common. This goes beyond screen trading and involves the sales departments.

Framework ConditionsEnergy renovation measures for buildings

Representatives of the gas industry were annoyed to learn that the tax breaks for renovations of buildings to make them more energy efficient was not included in the draft for the 2018 budget that was discussed in the German Bundestag mid-May. And it was not left out erroneously, as Thorsten Herdan the head of the ministry’s heating and efficiency department assumed during a session at Berliner Energietage, an event focussing on energy efficiency. The intention to introduce the tax break is stipulated in the coalition treaty (ener|gate Gasmarkt 03/18). But it remains the “unwanted stepchild of politics” as BDEW, the main energy association bemoaned in a press statement. For years, the different federal and state governments have been finding arguments for why they prefer not spending money for this funding.