Dublin, 23 April 2015 - Today at the 13th GIE Annual Conference, gas infrastructure companies Energinet.dk (Denmark), Fluxys Belgium (Belgium), Gasunie (Netherlands), Gaznat (Switzerland), GRTgaz (France) and Swedegas (Sweden) welcomed ONTRAS Gastransport (Germany) as member of their Green Gas Initiative to achieve a carbon neutral gas supply in 2050.

Ralph Bahke, CEO of ONTRAS Gastransport stated: "By joining the cooperation we feel confirmed and strengthened in our ambition to develop our gas infrastructure towards a carbon neutral energy supply. We are proud and pleased that we can now push forward this task together with other European TSOs."

Cost-effective solution for achieving EU carbon objectives
The Green Gas Initiative companies are convinced that gas and gas infrastructure are key to achieve EU carbon objectives at a reasonable cost for society and consumers. Combining biomethane and other regenerative energies with gas in the existing infrastructure is much more cost effective in carbon abatement than many high tech solutions. Gas infrastructure also enables the transport and storage of energy on a scale unmatched by other energy systems. Moreover, gas is a low emission alternative for oil products in transport.

Concrete pathways to 2050
The Green Gas Initiative companies channel their joint efforts and expertise into working groups to arrive at concrete pathways to 2050 for a selection of topics:

• Biomethane: upgrade biogas to biomethane to make it compatible with natural gas infrastructure specifications.
• Green gas certificates: establish a common green gas certificate market.
• Compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as alternative fuels for road and maritime transport: develop the market and the infrastructure for CNG and LNG to make their breakthrough as low carbon alternatives to oil products in transport.
• Power-to-gas: explore the potential of power-to-gas technology. Power-to-gas technology converts electricity into gas, making it storable for later use and enables gas infrastructure to provide the electricity system with the flexibility it is currently lacking.


The outcomes of the working groups are being cross-checked with a view to unlocking synergies and greater efficiency, e.g. preferably using biomethane and other regenerative gases for carbon reduction in the transportation sector or using power-to-gas to minimise the cost of energy transition.


Press contacts

• Energinet.dk: Jesper Nørskov Rasmussen, +45 76224820; jnr@energinet.dk
• Fluxys Belgium: Rudy Van Beurden, +32 2 282 77 54; rudy.vanbeurden@fluxys.com
• Gasunie: Chris Glerum, +31 50 521 27 89; press@gasunie.nl
• Gaznat : G. Verdan, +41 58 274 04 11 ; g.verdan@gaznat.ch
• GRTgaz: Claire Maindru, +33 1 55 66 40 84; claire.maindru@grtgaz.com
• ONTRAS Gastransport: Dr. Ralf Borschinsky, +49 341 27111-2111; ralf.borschinsky@ontras.com
• Swedegas: Saila Horttanainen, +46 70 622 76 06, saila.horttanainen@swedegas.se

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