COMPANY PROFILE
2015
E.ON Gas Storage GmbH
www.eon-gas-storage.de | +49 2 01-9 46 14-464
Total working gas capacity = 9.0 bcm Editorial: Rosie DeWinter
Certainly two of the most important characteristics of an underground gas storage facility are the capacity to hold natural gas for future use and the rate at which this gas can be withdrawn. E.ON Gas Storage GmbH has a total working gas capacity of 8.8 billion cubic meters (bcm) in Germany and Austria and if you include its subsidiary in the UK, the total available across Europe reaches a staggering 9.0 bcm. Total World Energy speaks to Managing Director, Dr. Peter Klingenberger who explains the importance of the company’s current projects and resolving the issues surrounding security of supply… Speaking at the European Gas Conference last year in Vienna, General Secretary for CEDIGAZ, Geoffroy Hureau explained that across Europe, there were 130 underground gas storage facilities (UGS) with a combined capacity of 99 bcm and a withdrawal rate of an estimated 2 bcm a day. W ith 100 members located in
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40 countries, CEDIGAZ keeps a database on UGS and has been operating as an international reference source of fundamental gas data since 1961. Since its last report, 13.5 bcm of new capacity has been commissioned via 15 new facilities in addition to further expansion on existing underground storage sites.
“While the storage capacity increased by 60% since 2008, gas demand increased by 8%, so it’s quite paradoxical but you have to consider the long lead time on these facilities to build new UGS. The decisions to build these were taken in the first half of the last decade,” Hureau explained in a statement.
E.ON Gas Storage GmbH One of the key industry players in UGS is E.ON Gas Storage GmbH. A subsidiary of E.ON Global Commodities SE, it became commercially operational at the end of 2008, following the unbundling regulation of the EU that was then followed by national law, which took all the storage facilities of the former E.ON Ruhrgas AG into account. E.ON Gas Storage currently has 14 underground storage facilities at 12 locations in both Germany and Austria in addition to its UK facility, Holford, which is located in Byley, Cheshire. Storage facilities not only help to ensure security of supply but act as an indispensable link between the almost constant gas supply from producer countries and the inevitable seasonal fluctuations in demand.
A WISE DECISION “With more than 20 storage operators in Germany, competition is inevitably significant,” explains Dr. Peter Klingenberger, Managing Director and Chairman of the Board of Management at E.ON Gas Storage. “I can’t see a more transparent competitive option than what we offer here,” he says. “We offer storage products which customers can book in without asking us beforehand. We use an internet platform for auctions and customers can make a bid if the price and the service are right. So we can’t do it more openly without influencing the booking behaviour of our potential customers,” explains Klingenberger. “You are obliged by law to have that level of transparency but we take it further. We believe that to be the largest storage operator we have to be one or two steps
ahead of legislation and say, ‘How would a market function?’ So that means full transparency, non‐discriminatory procedures and also booking procedures that are not influenced by anyone. On these three points, it goes above what the regulatory requirement is. I think we are then in a good position to be the market leader and be ahead of the legal steps, so it’s a wise decision to do that.”
KEY DEVELOPMENTS The flexible underground gas facility in Cheshire, which now comprises of eight caverns, each measuring 100m x 100m, helps to ensure the demand of UK customers are met on a daily basis. With a staggering 184 million cubic meters (mcm) of working gas capacity, Holford has a maximum injection and withdrawal capability of 22 mcm a day. With these fast rates, the
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facility can cycle its full capacity in under one month, labelling it as one of the most flexible gas storage units in the UK. Helping to sustain the supply‐ demand balance, the capacity at Holford is certainly impressive, equivalent to half of the UK’s daily average gas demand. Fully operational since February 2013, the Holford storage facility assists with gas transportation in and out of the UK’s National Transmission System and helps to make up for the decline in gas production in the UK which is decreasing at an estimated rate of 7% each year. For the first five years, 100% of the storage capacity from all eight caverns at Holford will be utilised by Noble Clean Fuels Ltd with E.ON Gas Storage providing the safety and maintenance of the facility.
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7FIELDS PROJECT Klingenberger explains that from the beginning of January last year, E.ON Gas Storage began working on a cross-border concept with connections running to both the German and Austrian grid. The 7Fields project will help to enhance supply security in Austria and Germany. It is a joint venture between Rohöl‐Aufsuchungs Aktiengesellschaft (RAG) and E.ON Gas Storage. The first stage of the project began in 2009 and was completed in April 2011 with the second stage beginning in April last year, increasing the working gas capacity by 685 mcm. Built on several former natural gas reservoirs, it stands as a unique project in Europe. “We have a cross border connection from Austria to Germany where we have our 7Fields project north of Salzburg,” Klingenberger
explains. “A cross‐ border concept, this storage facility is sending gas in both directions, giving a lot of flexibility, especially to our customers while guaranteeing a higher security of supply in both Austria and Germany. We have commissioned the second expansion stage which was completed recently. It will give a total working gas volume of 1.73 bcm, which is almost one third of the total UK capacity.”
‘PROJECT OF THE YEAR’ The Etzel storage site in Northern Germany, completed in 2012, was nominated for ‘Project of the Year’ at the European Gas Conference 2013. Helping to ensure security of natural gas supply in Europe, since its completion, natural gas has been flowing into the underground salt caverns, with more than 1 bcm injected into
E.ON Gas Storage GmbH storage as of January 2014. Klingenberger explains that with 19 caverns – the last of these de‐brined last autumn – “It is now fully operational, with almost 2 bcm of working gas volume.” An impressive project, it took more than 6,000 employees two million working hours to produce such a notable working gas volume. A huge advantage of the site is its proximity to three different market areas in Germany and the Netherlands. But Etzel will also take on a more important role for supply security and the transformation of Europe’s energy systems with a greater use of wind and solar power. Today, Etzel stands as one of the largest cavern storage facilities with an estimated
investment of more than EUR 1 billion.
THE WIND GAS PROJECT A development located in Brandenburg is E.ON’s power‐ to‐gas unit, the Wind Gas Falkenhagen Project. Using wind power to run electrolysis equipment, the unit breaks down water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then injected into the regional gas transmission system and becomes part of the natural gas mix used in a number of applications including industrial processes, mobility, space heating and power generation. “Wind Gas Falkenhagen has been in operation for 18 months,” explains Klingenberger. “It was fully engineered by us. It has linked the electricity grid with the gas grid and also connected electricity with
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Dr. Peter Klingenberger
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the customer. The biggest customer to buy the hydrogen from us is SWISSGAS AG who are also our project partner.” With two megawatt capacity, the unit in Falkenhagen can produce 360 cubic meters of hydrogen every hour. “Now, the Wind Gas Hamburg Project will take it further because this is a modular concept with a new type of electrolysis unit, which is very small. It has a capacity of one megawatt and could be used as a modular package in case you want to build a bigger plant using the equipment we are now testing in this project,” Klingenberger adds. The development of a very efficient electrolyzer, using the Proton‐Exchange‐Membrane (PEM) method as opposed to conventional alkaline electrolysis, would offer distinct advantages for the power‐to-gas approach.
A SUCCESSFUL TRACK RECORD Looking to the future Klingenberger stresses the
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importance of the new Battery Storage System (M5BAT): “It is a big project. We are testing grid stability and also the commercial part of feeding back into the system.” Backed by an estimated €6 million grant from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy as part of its ‘Energy Storage Funding Initiative’, this will be the world’s first modular large-scale five‐ megawatt battery storage system. Coordinated by RWTH Aachen University, the project will be built in Aachen, Germany. In addition to the M5BAT project, Klingenberger underlines the continued importance and value of gas storage customer needs to the company: “We have our own department dealing with products. From the standard bundle unit that was the basis for all storage products, we have developed a variety of products tailored to our customer’s needs. We put these products on the
internet so they are available for everybody to book. This is a constant process where we try to anticipate customer’s needs. We have a range of customers with variable storage capacity needs, so we provide different solutions that follow their different rationales,” he explains. Klingenberger attributes much of the company’s success over the years to its overriding dedication to customers and to its impressive safety record: “I believe it’s our complete customer orientation and the external view on what the market may need, and meeting the customer’s specific requirements,” he explains. “Then, there is the expansion towards European markets and internationalisation. Since we have all functions in‐house, we have managed to complete all our projects in the last six years to budget and to schedule. We also have a great project management team. “In all our projects we always adopt a safety‐ first approach. We believe there is no project that is ever worth personnel getting hurt. We really stress the HSEQ issues and were quite happy last year to record only one minor incident across our business, so we have a good track record.” A growing and prominent issue, Klingenberger underlines the importance of tackling the question of security of supply: “A particular problem we are faced with in Germany is nobody seems to be responsible for security of supply – so nobody has the obligation to supply gas in case of an emergency.” He explains that it is critically important to know who is responsible in case of outages or interruptions, whether due to political or weather issues.
E.ON Gas Storage GmbH A RENEWABLE FUTURE “I believe, and this is probably much forgotten, that any emissions from gas are significantly lower than from fossil fuels like coal. We see gas as a real future technology complementing renewables, that’s the green part we play and we are very flexible with that also. “ “Remember that we have hundreds of thousands of kilometers of gas pipelines in Germany and Europe; storing energy in these pipelines and in gas storage facilities is very much like to storing electricity in batteries. That is why we
Bertsch and its partnership with Silica Verfahrenstechnik GmbH for E.ON Gas Storage GmbH/ Statoil Deutschland GmbH
“We see gas as a real future technology complementing renewables, that’s the green part we play and we are very flexible with that”
are working on the conversion of electricity to gas which we believe is a future solution to the new world of the renewable energies. “As one of the largest European gas storage companies, we are committed to progress and to promoting activities in the field of technology and innovation. We want to develop innovative technologies for the transportation and storage of energy and show once more that sustainability is the key to the future,” Klingenberger concludes
BERTSCH energy Boiler and energy technology Process equipment construction
BERTSCHenergy has many years of experience in the production of gas drying units, which have been sold and delivered worldwide. These pressure vessels are required in gas fields for drying natural gas, after releasing it from underground storage, using the adsorption process.
BERTSCHenergy is an Austrian boiler plant engineering company with 90 years of experience in the energy industry and expertise in the following business segments:
In the latest project “Etzel – Statoil Deutschland GmbH / E.ON”, Bertschenergy delivered 6 adsorbers in cooperation with Silica Verfahrenstechnik GmbH. Each of the adsorbers is designed for a pressure of 85 bar and temperatures ranging from -40°degrees Celsius to + 320° degrees Celsius. The diameter of the adsorber is 3.6 m at a total height of 12.5 m. The wall thickness is 92 mm and the weight approximately 100 tons.
With a strong and dedicated team of highly competent and innovative engineers, BERTSCHenergy is committed to designing and delivering boiler plants and systems of superior quality, efficient per formance and operational sustainability, tailored to the specific technical requirements of each respective customer.
Bertsch energy is proud of the good cooperation with Silica Verfahrenstechnik GmbH and E.ON Gas Storage GmbH / Statoil Deutschland GmbH and is looking forward to upcoming projects.
Solid fuel boiler plants: Electricity and heat from biomass Combined-cycle/cogeneration HRSG: Electricity and heat from gas and oil Waste heat recovery boilers: Steam from waste heat in industrial processes Process heat recovery systems and pressure equipment: Steam, heat and equipment for process plants Service: Operational support, maintenance, modification, modernisation, upgrading
Josef Bertsch Gesellshaft m.b.H & Co KG. Herrengasse 23, A-6700 Bludenz, Austria T: +43 5552 6135-0 / E: bertschenergy@bertsch.at www.bertsch.at
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