Gas balancing service
According to the principles of the functioning of the gas market, each market participant must ensure that the amount of gas it supplies to the network and/or purchases is equal to the amount of gas it takes from the network and/or sells in each trading period.
In practice, market participants are unable to ensure a balance between consumption and production each gas day. Therefore, each market participant must have a contract with a single supplier that ensures the sale of the deficient gas and the purchase of surplus gas, i.e. an open supply contract. This open supplier, who in turn has an open supply contract with the system operator, is called a balance provider.
According to section 5 of “Network code governing the operation of the gas market”, a system operator publishes a list of open suppliers on its website (in the attachment below).
Elering, as the system operator, is responsible for ensuring the balance of the Estonian gas system and balance settlement of balance providers. An open supply contract between a balance provider and a system operator is called a balance agreement, the standard terms and conditions of which have been approved by the Competition Authority and are applicable in the common Estonian-Latvian balance zone.
Data exchange
According to subsection 22 (13) of the Natural Gas Act, the network operator is obligated to submit the metering data required for balance settlement to the balance provider and the system operator. To facilitate daily data exchange, gas market participants (network operators, metering points, etc.) are coded with so-called EIC codes. The coding procedure has been developed by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) and is used throughout Europe. More information about applying for EIC codes can be found on Elering’s website Electricity data exchange | Elering.