Topic of the Month: Gas in the transportation sector
In the last edition, ener|gate Gasmarkt introduced the new CNG initiative of the Volkswagen Group and seven companies from the gas industry and the filling station sector. Just as a reminder: until 2025 one million CNG-fuelled cars are to be on German roads and they may chose among 2,000 filling stations. Already in the last edition, the interview with Ludwig Möhring from Wingas and Jens Andersen from VW was announced. ener|gate Gasmarkt wanted to know from both how the ambitious target can be achieved and why in particular VW sees a new opportunity for CNG mobility.
Mr Möhring is the managing director of the gas supplier WINGAS and also supervisory board member of the industry association Zukunft Erdgas. Mr Andersen has worked for the Volkswagen Group since 1990. He had different senior management positions. Since 2015 he is head of the group’s technology strategy in the Group’s business development unit. He is the Group’s representative for natural gas mobility and member of the advisory board of Zukunft Erdgas.
ener|gate Gasmarkt: Mr Andersen, over the last 15 years, only around 100,000 CNG-fuelled cars were sold in Germany. You want to achieve one million cars until 2025. What do you want to do differently?
Framework conditionsAmendment of the ordinance provision on access to the gas networks
In the last edition, the amendment of the ordinance provision on access to the gas networks (GasNZV) was described at length. The focus was on the merger of the two market areas but all other changes were also listed. But fortunately, regulatory managers have read the document more carefully than ener|gate Gasmarkt has and pointed out to one missing adjustment. Paragraph 10 of the provision was erased completely. The provision allowed the TSOs to introduce an overbooking and a buy back mechanism as a measure to deal with congestion management. That option was never used. The ministry now argues that the rules for the introduction of such a mechanism are included in the European regulation on congestion management anyway. The problem: The European rules are valid only for border and market area interconnection points. At least representatives from single storage operators would have preferred the paragraph to remain in the ordinance provision to at least potentially allow a more efficient capacity provision at storage connection points. In many cases, a market participant said that this was the most efficient way to optimise the capacity offer. The storage connection points are not included in the European regulation.