Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The UK government has opposed new EU proposals forcing member states to divert gas to vulnerable consumers in neighbouring countries in the event of a supply crisis.
Under the rules, households and essential government services – such as healthcare and security – would be given priority under the proposed “solidarity principle”. By implication, businesses would be among the first to have their gas supplies cut off.
The Commission said the mechanism, whose aim is to make Europe more resilient, would only be triggered as a “last resort”. But the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said that, while it’s “right the UK works with countries in Europe” to make its energy more secure, it “doesn’t back legally binding rules in this area”, which it and others will “make clear” when negotiations start.
The proposal will be decided by the European Parliament and council of ministers. The EC was unable to provide a timetable for the decision.
The regulations would see EU members grouped into regions, with countries only required to divert supplies within their area. Ireland is the only other state in Britain’s North West region. The two countries already have an arrangement in place for dealing with supply emergencies which has never been used.
Commissioner for climate action and energy Miguel Arias Cañete said: “After the gas crises of 2006 and 2009 that left many millions out in the cold, we said: ‘Never again’. But the stress tests of 2014 showed we are still far too vulnerable to major disruption of gas supplies and the political tensions on our borders are a sharp reminder that this problem is will not just go away.
“Today’s proposals are about a reliable, competitive and flexible system in which energy flows across borders and consumers reap the benefits. They are about standing together to protect the most vulnerable.”
Director of the Energy Intensive Users Group Jeremy Nicholson said he didn’t understand the motivation behind the plans: “If it’s actually targeting the obvious case that there are certain central European states that are heavily dependent on Russian gas transiting via Ukraine … then there are other means of dealing with that.”
He said the best way of ensuring the security of supplies was to have “a liberalised market with free trading of gas”.
The regulations form part of a package of measures proposed by the Commission, which also includes plans to create a liquefied natural gas (LNG) and gas storage strategy to help members improve access to LNG supplies.
Earlier this week the World Energy Council released a report predicting that unconventional gas production, mainly from shale, will completely change the structure of world markets.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.