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TAR NC Implementation Document – Second Edition September 2017 |
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Non-physical backhaul capacity
‘Non-physical backhaul’ means that at unidirectional entry or exit points the volume
of gas is nominated to flow in the opposite direction to the physical flow. TSOs offer
firm capacity only in one direction, and the capacity offered in the other direction –
non-physical backhaul – is interruptible capacity. ENTSOG received stakeholder
feedback that the non-physical backhaul can be viewed as conditional firm capacity
product. ENTSOG does not support such an approach as ENTSOG believes that
conditional firm capacity falls into the category of firm capacity, whereas non-phys-
ical backhaul is interruptible capacity.
Article 16 describes the methodology for pricing interruptible capacity products,
which applies to all standard interruptible capacity products regardless of the direc-
tion of the gas flow at a given IP. ENTSOG believes that non-physical backhaul
capacity is an interruptible product, priced as set out in the TAR NC. ENTSOG
received stakeholder feedback that it is unclear how to price non-physical backhaul
capacity as there is only the reference price at a uni-directional point in the direction
of the gas flow and no reference price at such point in the opposite direction, i. e.
direction of non-physical backhaul. ENTSOG concluded that there is no issue with
pricing non-physical backhaul using the same pricing procedure as is applied for all
the points where interruptible capacity, including non-physical capacity, is offered.
For example, the following approaches can be possible:
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Postage stamp RPM: first tariffs for firm capacity at all the points are calculated.
Then for points where the non-physical backhaul is offered, the respective tariff
is calculated based on the probability of interruption related to non-physical
backhaul.
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Other RPMs: a point where non-physical backhaul is offered is taken into
account in RPM calculation. The capacity attributed to such entry/exit point is
the technical capacity of the exit/entry point with the physical flow. The
calculations result in a tariff for firm capacity at such point and then, this tariff
is used for calculating the tariff for non-physical backhaul.