The MVV Energie Group has long called for barriers to trading and sales in the gas market to be removed. MVV Energie played an active role in the establishment of a German gas exchange, as well as in the substantial improvements in gas grid access and measures to facilitate customer and supplier changes introduced by the Federal Networks Agency (BNetzA).

These measures have improved the competitive climate in the gas market and enabled us, as one of the pioneers in the industry, to launch nationwide sales of natural gas as of 1 October 2008.

To identify the barriers to competition still in place we commissioned a survey whose recommendations have met with great interest among politicians, at regulatory authorities and within our industry.

One major group of topics involves making better use of available transmission and storage capacities not based on any physical overload of transmission grids. We support the plans to remove contractual bottlenecks, maximise disposable grid capacities, optimise allocation and promote secondary trading. We expect these measures to bring substantial benefits for the expansion of our gas sales activities.

Since October 2009, the grid fees charged by inter-regional long-distance gas grid operators have also been regulated by the Federal Networks Agency. We expect this to lead to greater transparency and efficiency, for example in terms of the fees charged for transmissions between market regions and for balancing group management. We welcome the active role played by the Federal Networks Agency in further developing the gas market.