Actually the base year: The year in which, in accordance with § 6 of the ARegV, the regulatory authority calculates the starting level for determining the upper revenue limits on the basis of a cost check. The cost check is carried out in the penultimate calendar year prior to the start of the regulating period. It is based on the data from the last full financial year.

Supply companies are required to document their own pipeline network. The documentation is used for a variety of purposes, e.g. to produce inventory plans, for operational management and to visualize the sites affected by the pipeline route.

In order to ensure safe pipeline operation, companies carrying out planning or construction work must investigate the routes of underground supply pipelines (third-party planning inquiries) before a construction project begins. GASCADE then provides information regarding the routes of its own pipelines close to the project location and possible conditions. At GASCADE, pipeline information is issued on the basis of the pipeline documentation in the geographical information system (GIS).

Supply companies need to use property belonging to third parties in order to lay and operate pipelines. Generally speaking, the pipeline rights needed to do this are secured as a limited personal servitude in the land registry and appropriate compensation is paid.

The planning approval procedure is an approval procedure under public law for major infrastructure projects (e.g. natural gas pipelines). A particular feature of the planning approval procedure is that it has a “concentrating effect”, in other words, the planning approval decision replaces all other approvals. When making a decision, the planning approval authorities weigh up all public and private issues.

The idea of power to gas is to store electricity generated from renewable energy sources. In the process, the excess electricity generated is used to produce hydrogen and in turn methane which barely differs from the natural gas found in nature. Because methane is the main constituent (approx. 93 %) of conventional natural gas, this synthetically produced gas can be integrated into the natural gas infrastructure with no quantity restrictions. If necessary, it can be converted back to electricity.

PRISMA is a European capacity booking platform which was founded by European transmission system operators in 2013. Via PRISMA, the available capacities of the TSOs are marketed (primary capacity trading) and transport customers are able to trade capacities between themselves (secondary capacity trading).

A process managing system is used to manage a technical system, e.g. a compressor station. Process managing systems are mainly used for larger systems and usually consist of a package comprising the following mechanisms

• Process-related components for controlling regulators and valves and for recording measured values
• Alarm system
• System visualization
• Recording of analog measured value curves
• User management
• Engineering options
• Technical diagnostics options
• Data interfaces to external systems
• Automation units for more demanding control systems
• Data backup systems

The management system at the dispatching center is a special case. It combines the functions of various process management systems in the compressor stations with software applications simulation, forecast and business partner communication.

The abbreviation stands for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Or, in other words: Our dispatching center which controls all gas flows is in operation around the clock. 

Map with pipeline routes