ENTSOG BAL NC Monitoring Report 2016

1 Introduction and purpose

The BAL NC was published on 27 March 2014, this Network Code applies to balancing zones within the borders of the EU¹ ) . It establishes rules for natural gas balancing, including network-related rules on nomination procedures, imbalance charges, settlement processes associated with daily imbalance charges and provisions on operational balancing.

Its implementation shall also take into account the specific nature of interconnectors. 2) For countries like Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Malta that hold derogation on the basis of Article 49 of Directive 2009/73/EC the application of the BAL NC is not mandatory. Following Article 8 (8) of Regulation (EC) No 715/2009. ENTSOG shall monitor the effects of the BAL NC in the European market.

ENTSOG launched the first effect monitoring survey for GY 2015/2016, as it is considered that the BAL NC effects are now visible in the market and can be measured. The annual effect monitoring process was launched in December 2016 to ensure the timely publication of its results in the 2016 ENTSOG Annual Report.

2 Information sources and data collection

ENTSOG sent a questionnaire on 2 December 2016 to the TSOs of 22 EU countries (AT, BE, BG, CZ, DE, DK, EL, ES, FR, HU, HR, IE, IT, LT, NL, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK, RO, UK¹ ) ) where the Network Code applies and to four countries holding derogation on the basis of Article 49 of Directive 2009/73/EC (Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Luxembourg) to collect data for the effect monitoring of the BAL NC.

plementation deadline by 1 October 2016, as such these countries have not participated in the effect monitoring process 2016 as the re- quested data is for the period of GY 2015/2016, which is before their implementation deadline. 1) 2)3) (Further details on countries and their balancing zones are provided in ANNEX I, table 1.1 )

Data was provided per balancing zone by 21 countries (AT, BG, BE/LU, CZ, DE, DK, EL, FR, HU, IE, LT, NL, PL, SE, SI, SK, RO, UK-GB and UK-NI) including Estonia. Czech Republic applied the transitory period option with an im- plementation deadline by 1 July 2016, therefore their data has been provided from this imple- mentation date until the end of GY 2015/2016. Croatia, Spain, Italy and Portugal have also applied the transitory period option, with an im-

1) Energy Community Contracting Parties will follow the Code implementation based on deadlines agreed by their Ministerial Council. The implementation of the BAL NC in these Countries is not in the scope of this report. 2) Recital (8) of BAL NC. Due to the specific nature of interconnectors, IUK and BBL implemented the BAL network code on an “in = out” principle, whereby a network user’s delivery nominations must equal its offtake nominations. As such, network users cannot be exposed to an imbalance and there is no need to take balancing actions. Therefore, many of the requirements of NC BAL do not apply. Where BAL does apply, e. g. relevant rules on nominations, IUK and BBL have taken all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with the requirements. This approach was approved by the relevant NRAs. 3) UK is mentioned as UK-GB and UK-NI due to two different balancing regimes

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ENTSOG BAL NC Monitoring Report 2016