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Energy

EU Energy Platform

The platform plays a key role in pooling demand, coordinating infrastructure use, negotiating with international partners and preparing for joint gas and hydrogen purchases.

©iStock (from left to right) : IgorSPb/jroballo/ Zorandim75

In response to the global energy market disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU adopted the REPowerEU Plan in 2022 to save energy, produce clean energy and diversify its energy supplies. The plan also aims to increase Europe’s strategic resilience and make it less dependent on Russian gas imports.

At the request of the European Council and in line with REPowerEU, the Commission launched the EU Energy Platform in April 2022.

Objectives

The EU Energy Platform has 3 objectives

  • demand aggregation and joint purchasing of gas
  • most efficient use of existing infrastructure
  • international outreach 

It aims at coordinating EU action on global markets to prevent EU countries from outbidding each other, whilst leveraging our political and market weight to effectively diversify supplies, introduce direct competition between the world’s largest suppliers and achieve better conditions for all EU consumers. It covers a range of actions regarding natural gas and LNG (and in the future hydrogen) to support the EU’s security of supply and access to affordable energy, including international outreach, demand aggregation, and efficient use of EU gas infrastructures.

To date, the EU Energy Platform has played a key role in diversifying supplies, increasing efficiency of infrastructure use, and negotiating with reliable international partners.

Timeline

Since the start of the war in February 2022, the situation on the gas market progressively deteriorated. Russia’s weaponisation of gas supply to Europe tightened the market and led to a dramatic increase in gas prices. The wholesale price in 2022 was on average over 5 times higher than its pre-crisis level, even spiking above 300€/MWh at the height of the crisis in summer 2022.

This is why, on 19 December 2022, the Council adopted an emergency Regulation to enhance solidarity through better coordination of gas purchases, reliable price benchmarks and exchanges of gas across borders (EU/2022/2576). This instrument was requested by the European Council in the midst of the energy crisis, as part of the EU’s efforts to improve security of supply and phase out our supplies of Russian gas as soon as possible. The Commission proposed a 1 year extension of the emergency measure, which was adopted by the Council on 23 December 2023.

Exporting partner countries

In 2022, the EU Energy Platform was key to the EU’s diversification efforts, facilitating the signature of Memoranda of Understanding with main gas exporting partner countries, such as for example the US, Azerbaijan, Egypt and Norway, and enhancing international outreach to support the REPowerEU Plan.

In 2023, the focus was put on organising demand aggregation and joint purchasing of gas for gas storage ahead of the winter 2023-2024 season. In a record time, and thanks to the close cooperation between the Commission, EU countries and the industry, the Commission was able to put in place an instrument that reinforced security of supply and took into account the needs of market operators in the EU.

AggregateEU

AggregateEU is the Commission’s flagship initiative to implement demand aggregation and support more coordinated purchase of natural gas at European level. It was launched in 2023 and is operated by the service provider, Prisma European Capacity Platform GmbH.

AggregateEU’s initial objective was to contribute to sufficient and diversified gas supplies for the winter 2023/2024 in EU countries and Energy Community Contracting Parties. It also aims at reducing price volatility and increasing predictability, by providing information on available energy supplies, whilst harnessing Europe's collective market weight. The mechanism offers an alternative channel to match gas demand and supply, whilst increasing transparency and offering new forms of cooperation.

The prolongation of the legal basis for the mechanism by 1 year (until 31 December 2024) was agreed by the Council on 19 December 2023, following the Commission’s proposal.

Result in 2023

Four tendering rounds were organised from April to December 2023. The tenders covered 25 delivery points and 2 LNG virtual points (North-West, and South-East). During these 4 rounds, more than 54 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas demand from European companies were aggregated and more than 61 bcm were offered by international suppliers. After seeking the most competitive offers, AggregateEU matched more than 42 bcm to cover European demand.  

Overall, the EU Energy Platform delivered excellent results in aggregating demand and coordinating the purchase of natural gas and has attracted strong interest from market players.

AggregateEU – how does it work

AggregateEU pools gas demand from EU and Energy Community companies and matches this demand with competitive supply offers. Following the matching of demand with supply, companies can voluntarily conclude purchasing contracts with gas suppliers, either individually or jointly.

Company cooperation is particularly beneficial for smaller companies and companies from landlocked countries with less global outreach or negotiating power.

Whilst purchasing contracts between companies and gas suppliers remain voluntary, and outside AggregateEU, EU countries must aggregate gas demand equivalent to 15% of their storage filling obligations, representing around 13.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year. Beyond the 15%, the aggregation is voluntary, but based on the same mechanism.

How to participate in AggregateEU?

Gas companies and gas-consuming companies can register and subscribe to the AggregateEU services throughout the year. 

It is important to note that a company can participate either as a seller or as a buyer in any single tender at AggregateEU, but not both.

More information on the registration and subscription is available in the detailed 'Questions and Answers’ section.

AggregateEU – questions and answers

Mid-term tenders

The effects of the energy crisis are still not over. To address the growing demand for stability and predictability from buyers and sellers of natural gas, AggregateEU introduced the mid-term tenders in early 2024.

In these tenders, buyers will be able to submit their demand for seasonal 6-month periods (minimum 1,800,000 MWh for LNG and 30,000 for NBP per period), going from April 2024 to October 2029.

Mid-term tenders are intended to

  • support industrial consumers and other wholesale consumers in exploring additional purchasing options under a pseudonym, in other words, attract sellers purely based on the demand profile
  • support sellers in identifying buyers who might be interested in a longer trading partnership – that is, up to 5 years

The first mid-term tender took place from 15 February to 27 February 2024. The demand submission phase closed on 21 February with 34 bcm of total demand submitted by 19 companies, including industrial players. LNG demand represented over 15.3 bcm, while more than 18.3 bcm was requested for delivery via pipeline. The tender attracted offers for a total volume of 97.4 bcm from international suppliers, almost triple the demand submitted by EU companies. The suppliers and consumers were matched through the AggregateEU platform, allowing companies to enter into contractual negotiations bilaterally.  

PRISMA organised a webinar on 30 January 2024 explaining the process, the recording is available on YouTube. More information is available on the dedicated PRSIMA website

Governance

To set up the joint purchasing mechanism, EU countries and industrial players from the EU and the Energy Community have been gathering forces in different fora to provide their expertise and advice to the Commission.

They have been doing so through the EU Energy Platform ad hoc Steering Board, the Regional Groups and an Industry Advisory Group.

Transparency and information exchange

Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2576 provides the Commission with the possibility of issuing recommendations on how to better coordinate purchases of gas in the EU. These recommendations can propose measures to avoid a potential negative impact of gas purchases by companies and authorities on joint purchasing of gas and on security of supply, energy solidarity and the internal market.

The basis for these recommendations is the notification of companies or authorities of EU countries about the intention to launch a tender to purchase gas or conclude negotiations with natural gas producers or suppliers from third countries on the purchase of gas of a volume above 5 TWh/year.

Our short guideline describes how to notify the Commission of this transparency provision and the SECEM2 guide explains how to configure e-mail clients to enable encrypted exchanges with Commission services.

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