05.09.2023
Source: Energy & Management Powernews
A few days before the possible vote in the Bundestag on the planned Building Energy Act (GEG), the Association of Municipal Companies (VKU) points to legal hurdles.
In an expert opinion commissioned by the VKU, it is about the consequences for possible hydrogen network expansion areas. As it is said on the part of the law firm Becker Büttner Held (BBH), it could come to unintended difficulties in the concession award relevant for energy companies and the so-called unbundling. "We expect that these legal uncertainties will be resolved," VKU CEO Ingbert Liebing is quoted as saying in an association statement.
Liebing warns of a delay in the heat turnaround because urgently needed investments in the conversion of gas distribution networks could fail to materialize. He said the planned building energy law provides content for a roadmap to convert gas grids to hydrogen networks, which would give rise to several legal implementation issues. "This represents a risk factor that may prevent grid operators from concluding roadmaps for conversion to hydrogen grids with municipalities," Liebing said. The issues affected, he said, are the awarding of concessions and the unbundling and linking of gas distribution networks with the hydrogen core network.
The law firm BBH had the importance and the legal need for adaptation for a successful implementation of these roadmaps examined in the VKU order and comes in the expert opinion, among other things, to the following results and proposed solutions:
- The position of the European Commission on the separation of the operation of hydrogen and gas networks is so restrictive that the necessary start of the operation of a hydrogen network by existing gas distribution system operators seems to be excluded in principle. Gas network operators would then be prevented from drawing up and implementing the binding conversion schedules envisaged in the draft legislation. This is currently being negotiated in Brussels as part of the internal gas market regulation. "The German government should support the position of the European Parliament against this unbundling," Liebing demands.
- The bill assumes that there is a permanent continuity of the gas network operator. In fact, the concession is limited to a maximum of 20 years. As a rule, binding schedules are not likely to be implemented during the remaining term of the concession, and a possible change of concession would jeopardize the implementation of existing schedules. With changes in the concession law, this could be solved.
- According to the draft law, when switching to hydrogen, gas network operators are obliged to provide guarantees for the supply of hydrogen, which is not a task of network operators. In this case, the dependence on the upstream network is added: currently, only the legal basis for the upstream hydrogen core network is created; the connection of the distribution networks and thus the end customers must still follow. Here, too, the VKU sees an urgent need for action: "Without a connection of the distribution networks to the core network, the municipalities and the network operators cannot provide any supply guarantees with the planned schedules. We need an integrated hydrogen and gas grid development plan to be drawn up without delay, taking into account the grid development plan for electricity, which should be updated at least every two years," Liebing demands.
The full report can be downloaded from the VKU homepage by anyone interested.
Author: Günter Drewnitzky
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