Guidelines of Good Practice for Storage System Operators
Guidelines of Good Practice for Storage System Operators
Since gas liberalisation in October 2002 third parties have had access to Austrian underground storage facilities. Legally, the liberalisation of the storage market relies on the second and, since 2009, also the third liberalisation package of the European Union; the Gas Directive contained in the latter was transposed into national legislation with the Gaswirtschaftsgesetz (Natural Gas Act) 2011.In March 2005 the Madrid Forum — an advisory platform that brings together representatives of the European Commission, the European gas industry, traders, regulators and other energy market stakeholders — adopted the Guidelines for Good Practice for Storage System Operators (GGPSSO). These are rules for access to gas storage facilities, market transparency and the design of storage products. Compliance with the GGPSSO by storage operators is voluntary.
Based on the 2008 and 2009 status reviews, which were consulted with storage system operators, storage customers and regulatory authorities, CEER's Gas Storage Task Force (GST TF) developed in 2010 concrete proposals for how to improve capacity allocation mechanisms and congestion management procedures (CAM & CMP) for storages and extend the existing GGPSSO.
The GGP CAM & CMP for storage were submitted to public consultation and discussed in detail with interest groups; at the Madrid Forum in September 2011, the resulting GGP were presented and welcomed. Storage system operators were asked to put the voluntary guidelines into practice, also supported by EFET and Eurogas.
An extension to the previous GGPSSO, the GGPSSO for CAM and CMP were published on CEER's website in July 2011.
