• Establishment of a VIP in addition to the existing IP

• Contracts that exist on the date of VIP-establishment (existing contracts) remain at the IP. An option to transfer these contracts to the VIPs is not foreseen

• The technical capacity at the IP corresponds to the level of the capacity which is contained in existing contracts on the date of VIP-establishment. After the end of a contract the capacity becomes available and is marketed at the VIP

• The technical capacity of the VIP consists of the available capacities of the IPs constituting the respective VIP

Nominations for existing contracts take place at the IP, Nominations for new contracts at the VIP

• Should existing contracts at the other side of the border be transferred to the VIP, the existing contracts are to be nominated at the IP on the German side and at the VIP on the other side. The German TSOs together with the partners on the other side of the border will ensure the execution of the transport.

CMP-Measures

• Capacity surrendered from existing contracts is remarketed at the VIP

• Long Term UIOLI: Identification of the congestion will consider all relevant points, identification of use and withdrawal per IP, marketing of withdrawn capacity at the VIP

• Short Term UIOLI: Identification of the limits for application and renomination per IP, marketing of capacities made available at the VIP

• Secondary marketing of existing contracts takes place at the IP

Contractual verification of nominations at each IP and at the VIP

• Afterwards aggregation of received nominations per border in order to ensure the transport execution also in cases where existing contracts are transferred to the VIP on the other side of the border

Aggregated nominations are transmitted to the adjacent TSOs for the matching

Over-nomination

• Balancing group managers can only over-nominate at the VIP

• Over-nomination at the IP is excluded as all available capacity is marketed at the VIP

• The complete booking of the VIP capacities is the condition for allowing over-nominations at the VIP

Bundled Nomination (Single-Sided-Nomination) will be offered from VIP to VIP

„Bundling Conversion“ (NC CAM)

• Converting an unbundled existing contract on the German side of the IP is only possible by booking bundled capacity at the IP until the date of VIP establishment

• Unbundled IP-capacities on the German side of the IP cannot be converted anymore after the date of VIP establishment

• Should an unbundled existing contract on the other side of the border be transferred to the VIP, the conversion via booking of bundled capacity at the VIP should still be possible based on the requirements of the TSO on the other side of the border

  „Upgrade Conversion“ (GasNZV)

• Conversion of existing contracts for interruptible capacity or firm capacities with interruptible elements at the IP to firm capacities or firm capacity products with less interruptible elements are only possible by booking such capacities (according to TSO specific product ranking) at the IP until the date of VIP establishment

• After the date of VIP establishment, an upgrade at the IP is not possible anymore

As described in the market information of May 2018, establishing a VIP between NCG and the Market area East including the points Oberkappel and Überackern is not possible. Upon written request by the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), the TSOs GRTgaz Deutschland and Open Grid Europe have decided to establish a VIP only at Oberkappel in Germany.

The TSOs will thus establish the VIP NCG Oberkappel on the German side of said interconnection point on 1 March 2019. This implementation date has been communicated to Gas Connect Austria and the Bundesnetzagentur.

Further details regarding the implementation of these VIPs (e.g. the EIC-Codes) are available under the download section. The TSOs underline that the changes due to the VIP establishment concern only the German side of the interconnection point.

Due to the uncertainties regarding the VIP-establishment as well as the risks involved, the TSOs were for a long time unable to initiate the adaptations to the core processes and IT-systems required for VIP-implementation. The implementation of VIPs has implications for the whole complex IT-landscape of the TSOs. In particular time-critical, highly-available systems and processes like nomination and grid steering systems are affected. Due to the criticality of these systems and processes a comprehensive quality assurance is imperative.

Therefore, the TSOs will establish the VIP France-Germany and the VIP Waidhaus NCG by 1.3.2019. This implementation date has been coordinated with the adjacent TSOs and the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) has been informed.

Further details regarding the implementation of these VIPs (e.g. the EIC-Codes) are available under the download section.

The VIP L GASPOOL-NCG will be established by 1. November 2018. Due to the fact that this VIP only involves Open Grid Europe on the NCG-side of the border the implementation of this VIP is relatively easy and the establishment can therefore be managed by 1.11.2018. Also on the Gaspool-side, due to the lower complexity (transfer of new “existing contracts” to the VIP by Nowega and GUD) the establishment of the VIP L GASPOOL-NCG by 1.11.2018 is realistic.

EIC-Code of „VIP L GASPOOL-NCG“: 37Z000000007353T

Marketing begin for VIP capacities: The marketing of capacities at the VIP will start with the Day-Ahead auction on 31.10.2018 for the gas day 1.11.2018.

VIP-tariffs: With regards to the VIP-tariffs, the TSOs refer to the price sheets of the VIP TSOs NOWEGA and OGE.

The abovementioned TSOs are currently working on the establishment of the VIPs Belgium-NCG and Germany-CH. The implementation of VIPs has implications for the whole complex IT-landscape of the TSOs. In particular time-critical, highly-available systems and processes like nomination and grid steering systems are affected. Due to the criticality of these systems and processes as well as mutual dependencies between the TSO’s IT systems a comprehensive quality assurance is imperative. This requires more time than originally expected.

Therefore, the TSOs will establish the VIP Belgium-NCG and the VIP Germany-CH on 1 July 2019 and will only market VIP capacities from that day on. In order to allow our customers to book VIP capaci-ties early on, TSOs will market only VIP capacities already in the following auctions:

Quarterly auctions in May 2019 for the transport period 1.7.2019 – 1.10.2019
Monthly auctions in June 2019 for the transport period July 2019
Yearly auctions in July 2019 for the transport period gas year 2019/2020 and following
Day Ahead/Within Day-auctions starting on 30 June 2019 for the transport period starting on 1 July 2019

This approach is coordinated with the adjacent TSOs and the regulator is informed.

Further details regarding the implementation of these VIPs (e.g. the EIC-Codes) will be communicat-ed with sufficient lead-time. The concerned TSOs would like to underline again that no major chang-es in operations are to be expected from the customer’s point of view. This is the case in particular for customers that are already active at the relevant IPs. As Open Grid Europe will be the “VIP-TSO” for the VIP Belgium-NCG and Fluxys TENP the “VIP-TSO” for the VIP Germany-CH and today’s pro-cesses will remain largely unchanged, the requirements for the customer before grid use are mainly to register with the VIP-TSO via PRISMA if they are not already registered with that TSO and perform a communication test. Such a registration is already possible today. The VIP-TSO will provide suffi-cient time for registration and establishment of interfaces.

The abovementioned TSOs are currently working on the establishment of the VIPs TTF-NCG-H and TTF-NCG-L. The implementation of VIPs has implications for the whole complex IT-landscape of the TSOs. In particular time-critical, highly available systems and processes like nomination and grid steering systems are affected. Due to the criticality of these systems and processes a comprehensive quality assurance is imperative.

We would like to inform you that we will implement the abovementioned VIPs at April 1^st, 2020, 6 a.m. The first auction at these VIPs will be the monthly auction for April which will take place March 16^th, 2020. Furthermore, we will invite you to communication test in advance.

To coordinate the implementation date, we work close together with the Netherlands TSO Gasunie Transport Services (GTS). After successful completion of the test period, GTS will finally confirm the start date of the VIP. If it will come to any delay through this decision, we will inform you immediately.