Publication of fees and neutrality charges as of October 2023

PRESS Release

Publication of fees and neutrality charges as of October 2023

Berlin/Ratingen, 17 August 2023 Trading Hub Europe GmbH (THE) publishes the fees and neutrality charges for the period starting on 1 October 2023. The SLP and RLM balancing neutrality charges as well as the conversion neutrality charge have each been set at 0 EUR/MWh. There will be no distribution of surpluses in any of the accounts. For the conversion from H-gas to L-gas, the market area manager will reduce the conversion charge to 0.21 EUR/MWh, while the VTP fee will be reduced to 0.00142 EUR/MWh. 

The determination of the balancing neutrality charges at the stated levels is due, among other things, to the overall difficult market environment, the forecast balancing gas requirement and the corresponding balancing gas costs, as well as the status of the SLP and RLM balancing neutrality accounts.

According to the GaBi Gas 2.0 ruling, the market area manager has to determine and levy two separate balancing neutrality charges for SLP and RLM exit points. They are determined, among other things, on the basis of the forecast balancing actions and the resulting balancing requirement as well as the current balances of the SLP and RLM balancing neutrality accounts. In the current period, the market environment has changed significantly. One example are the savings made by consumers. However, it is difficult to predict whether and how these changes will continue in the coming period. THE assumes that the market environment will continue to be very volatile, in which even minor changes in the framework conditions can have a greater impact than was observed in the past.

According to the Konni Gas 2.0 ruling, the conversion neutrality charge has to be determined in a way that provides a sufficient market incentive for multi-quality gas trading, without the market area manager becoming the main procurer of the physical L-gas quantities. Against this background, THE has set the incentive-based conversion charge for the conversion from H-gas to L-gas at 0.21 EUR/MWh. The reason for this is, among other things, that in the past months the market has made significantly more L-gas available than in previous periods.

Together with the conversion neutrality charge, the conversion fee serves to cover the commercial and technical conversion costs. The expected costs are in the amount of the current account balance, taking into account the liquidity buffer. The conversion neutrality charge has thus been set at 0 EUR/MWh.

The VTP fee which is payable by both the disposing and the acquiring balancing group manager for each nominated transfer of gas quantities from 1 October 2023 will be 0.00142 EUR/MWh.

The balancing neutrality charges, the conversion fee, the conversion neutrality charge and the VTP fee are determined for a period of 12 months.