Gas network / System responsibility

System responsibility

Gasgrid Finland is the transmission system operator (TSO) for gas and assigned with system responsibility for the natural gas transmission system in Finland.

The duties of the transmission system operator (TSO) with system responsibility include the following:

The TSO with system responsibility determines the level of system reliability to be maintained in the gas transmission network, maintains the related system technology requirements in accordance with national planning codes and agrees on methods and policies to secure the technical functioning of the system with parties operating within the natural gas system.
The TSO with system responsibility sees to the maintenance of gas transmission network pressure for each balancing period. The duration of the balancing period is one gas day, which commences at 7:00 am and ends at 7:00 am on the following day.
For the purpose of regulation during a balancing period, the TSO with system responsibility organises by, for example, using compressors, the usable regulation capacity needed for regulation that takes place during each balancing period as well as organises capacity employment in an efficient and appropriate manner.
The TSO with system responsibility is responsible for national natural gas balance settlement as well as balance settlement concerning shippers and traders in accordance with the Natural Gas Market Act (587/2017) and the Government Decree (1008/2019) to obtain the shippers’ and traders’ imbalances for each balancing period. At the beginning of 2020, Finland renounced the derogations granted under Directive 2008/73/EC concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and, consequently, applies the EU natural gas internal market legislation in full.
The TSO with system responsibility is responsible for transmission control, network functioning in normal conditions and operation control within the natural gas transmission system managed by the TSO.
The TSO with system responsibility ensures the technical functioning of the network during any incidents and sees to incident response and the restoration to normal of the gas transmission system.
The TSO with system responsibility is responsible for the maintenance of gas quality in the transmission network.

Finland participates in the activities of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG)

The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG) was founded on 1 December 2009, and its members comprise tens of transmission system operators (TSOs) across Europe. As the Finnish TSO, Gasgrid Finland takes part in ENTSOG’s activities. We publish data on the ENTSOG platform, which also provides information about Europe’s gas networks and data such as amounts of capacity offered at interconnection points between countries.

ENTSOG formulates network codes for gas transmission networks that are harmonised at the EU level and binding to all gas TSOs. The network codes are based on guidelines produced by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). The network codes aim to harmonise the operating principles of Member States’ gas markets towards the EU’s internal market in gas. The network codes cover data exchange, balancing, tariffs and capacity allocation.