Thyssengas Biogas

Information on feeding biogas into our transmission grid

The timetable for feeding biogas into our transmission grid.

Feeding in biogas strengthens the economic side of your project.

Up to now, the operators of biogas plants have only been able to reap the economic benefits by converting the generated gas into electricity. By feeding their biogas into our L or H gas grid, they can now trade everywhere at a virtual point. Our grid access system EESy® acts as a trading platform so that they can market their biogas to various customer groups.

Thyssengas will be happy to answer questions from anyone interested in feeding biogas into the grid.

PHASE 1: PROJECT ENGINEERING AND PLANNING

Cost effectiveness begins with a professional analysis.

We will press ahead with integrating biogas plants in the natural gas grid in the interests of the environment. We have hereby set fixed deadlines for verification and planning:

Within one week of receipt of your query we will either confirm that the documents you have submitted are complete or inform you of which information is still missing.

If all documents have been provided you will receive a summary of the necessary scope of testing within two weeks.

The comprehensive test costs around 16,000 euros and includes the planning of all plants, machinery and lines needed for the integration along with a cost estimation.

You will be sent the result of the comprehensive grid connection test within three months of payment of 25 % of the total test costs.

We require some information in advance about your planned plant so that we can provide the decisive information on your project as quickly as possible. To this end, we kindly request that you complete the inquiry form. This contains only a few, but important questions that can be answered quickly and easily with the download questionnaire. This helps us provide fast and reliable support for your planning.

Biogas grid map with initial info on feed capacities

This map shows all points in our transmission grid in colour. It provides biogas producers an initial idea of the possibilities for a biogas feed. In principle, we give priority treatment to the feed of biogas. However, there may be delays if an entry point lies before a part of the grid from which only small amounts of natural gas are drawn in the summer months by the connected customers. In this case we have to take appropriate technical measures so as to nevertheless implement a feed. These can be, for example, the installation of additional compressors or the physical connection of two parts of a grid by a new natural gas line. These measures take time and could affect the plans of biogas producers.

We are assuming the connection of a biogas plant with an hourly output of 700 standard cubic metres (biogas processed acc. to G260 and G262) to our transmission grid.

The colour green indicates: a direct feed is possible. A red coloured line means: an extension is needed before biogas can be fed into the grid. We have already received inquiries about feeds in those sections that are coloured yellow. Additional measures will be needed if these projects are realised and other biogas feeds are to be implemented in these sections of the grid.

PHASE 2: INVESTMENT AND COST ALLOCATION

We pay part of the investment costs for the network connection:

75 percent of the cost of the network connection must be borne by the network operator. The connection user pays the remaining 25 percent of the network connection costs for a network connection including a connection line with a length of up to 1 kilometre, but not more than € 250,000. If a connection line is longer than 10 kilometres, the connection user has to bear the extra costs. The network operator is the owner of the network connection.

The cost of plants and equipment for odorisation, LPG conditioning and gas property measurement (chemical analysis) will be fully paid by us.

After connection, all operating costs are paid by us.

PHASE 3: FEED AND MARKET BIOGAS

Good sales opportunities for you.

Our entire market area is open to you via trading at the virtual point. With all connected potential biogas customers. This will boost your sales opportunities enormously.

Safe remuneration – the infeed remuneration.

You will receive 0.7 ct/kWh because you save us investments at other points in the grid through the supplies from your plant.

Your and your customers gain high flexibility.

We offer an extended grid balancing in addition to the basic grid balancing. This contains balancing of excess or shortfall feeds with a flexibility framework of 25 %. The remuneration for the increased flexibility is 0.1 cent/kWh for the actual flexibility framework that is used. The consequence: your risk is reduced. Any excess or shortfall quantities will be cost-efficiently balanced by us by 31 March 2011. Subsequently, the market area owner will take over the balancing.

Use the experience and service quality of a leading gas transporter for the success of your biogas plant.

In order to find the best technical and economic solution for the feed quickly we would like to cooperate very closely with you in the planning phase. We have been giving our attention to the topic of biogas feeds for some time now and are actively supporting the market development process. For example, together with the Gaswärme-Institut Essen we have looked into how biogas has to be processed so that it can be fed into natural gas grids and have developed a modular, pilot feed plant. This greatly simplifies the adjustment to the relevant biogas plant and also saves time.

It goes without saying that we also offer our support to check the route for the construction of connecting lines to our natural gas grid.