Source: Energate Messenger
The bundling of balancing groups allows the participating balancing group managers to reduce the balancing energy costs through a mutual balancing of the balancing groups. The entity responsible for the pool, MET Germany, only charges the net balance of all participating sub-balancing groups to the market area manager.
In recent years, however, the advantages of pooling have decreased. In addition, potential liquidity risks due to insolvencies of a number of natural gas suppliers and the problems of the service provider Komsolution have become more apparent. This is why some providers have withdrawn from this business. Particularly after the withdrawal of Gasversorgung Süddeutschland’s very large “BikPOOL” – however, many traders, distribution companies and municipal utilities are seeking for a new service provider. Numerous market participants confirmed this to energate. The provider for portfolio and balancing group management, Portfoliowerkstadt, had announced the start of a new city pool a few weeks ago and reports huge demand.
MET Group also provides similar services in other markets and sees vital potential in pooling. The pool is intended to bring together companies whose consumption structures and patterns match well in order to generate the highest possible pool benefits. The fee is calculated individually for each participant in order to reward a positive contribution to the pool portfolio. In addition, the company also promises to minimise risk for the participants. Surpluses are distributed to the participants once a calendar year. The project manager for the introduction of the pool is Moritz Buschmann, who had developed the balancing group pool at his previous employer Gas-Union.
MET Germany was founded at the end of 2020 (as energate reported). The balancing group pool is also supposed to serve the company to establish further business relationships with municipal utilities. "Business and trading relationships with municipal utilities are a central part of our business model and we are looking forward to providing additional support to our partners with this additional service," CFO Tobias Meyer emphasised to energate. Furthermore, a trading umbrella will be offered to municipal utilities so that the companies can benefit directly from MET's trading expertise. At the start, the company had focused primarily on supplying large industrial customers. MET Germany is already delivering several TWh to its customers in 2021.
MET Germany will not only engage in the field of trade and distribution, but also intends to invest. This is in line with the philosophy of MET Group, emphasised MET Germany CEO Jörg Selbach-Röntgen. In the recent past, various projects in the wind and solar sector have been realised in Europe. MET Germany also considers itself as a partner of industry and public utilities in the context of hydrogen.
"Germany is to become a guiding example for MET Group in the field of hydrogen. We are ready to invest in infrastructure and electrolysers and offer partnerships for industrial companies that want to actively shape the energy transition jointly with us," Selbach-Röntgen explained during a customer event. Regarding the hydrogen topic, MET Germany is contemporarily also in an exchange with the Hessian state government which strongly supports projects at industrial companies and in public transport.
By Heiko Lohmann