ENTSOG BAL NC Monitoring Report 2016

3.8 LINEPACK FLEXIBILITY SERVICE (CHAPTER IX OF BAL NC)

TSOs may offer a linepack flexibility service to the shippers under the NRA’s approval of the re- lated terms and conditions. This commercial service which utilises the flexibility within the transmission system shall be consistent with the responsibility of the shipper to balance its inputs and off-takes throughout the gas day. Five countries (CZ, FR, NL, PT and SE) reported already offering linepack flexibility service prior to or on 1 October 2016 (see map 10). Of the three countries (ES, PT and SI) where the intro- duction of this service has been discussed or previously foreseen, only Portugal decided final- ly to implement this service. All five countries reported that the terms and conditions were approved by the NRA. While four of them (FR, NL, PT and SE) implemented the provisions of the linepack flexibility service, the TSO in Czech Republic responded that there are doubts whether all criteria foreseen in art. 44.1 of BAL NC are met due to different legal interpretations.

In France, the NRA decided that the neutrality mechanism does not apply to the linepack flexi- bility service according to art. 43.5 of BAL NC, due to the fact that linepack flexibility service is considered to be similar to any other service provided by the TSO. Of the countries applying linepack flexibility service, the Netherlands implemented WDOs. The TSO therefore also confirmed the prioritisa- tion of reducing WDO over the provision of a linepack flexibility service (art. 44.2 BAL NC). Further details about the publication of the relat- ed documents can be found in Annex I, table 1.3 .

Linepack flexibility service implemented

No linepack flexibility service implemented Linepack flexibility service partially implemented

Map 10:  Implementation of linepack flexibility service by 1 October 2016

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ENTSOG BAL NC Monitoring Report 2016

* Czech Republic partially implemented the provisions for NDM off-takes. In Austria, NDM forecasts are provided by DAM based on data from DSOs.