Activities

Natural gas will continue to make a considerable contribution to the security of supply of energy for both Germany and Europe over the next decades. Besides, it will be an essential element for the energy transition. In the future, fossil natural gas will gradually be replaced by CO2-neutral synthetic gas. By doing so, the existing gas infrastructure is able to make a significant and economically meaningful contribution to tomorrow's energy system. 

The most important application of natural gas in Germany is for the heating market. Gas power plants compensate the fluctuations due to weather and the season that cannot be covered by electricity and renewable sources. Natural Gas is the most climate-friendly fossil energy and offers therefore significant climate advantages in serving as a backbone for a fluctuating energy demand. Especially when it is compared to e.g. coal power generation.Our market role as a TSO is described in the Energy Industry Act. It obliges us to operate a safe, reliable and efficient energy supply network. Besides, when economically justified, expansions need to be realized in order to serve long term gas transport demand.

In the past, Germany was almost exclusively supplied with gas delivered directly from the producer via pipelines. Over the past few years, this situation has changed significantly for several reasons: On the one hand, natural gas quantities from German domestic production or key supplier countries such as the Netherlands will soon be partially or completely unavailable. On the other hand, alternative sources need to be developed to ensure Germany’s security of supply in light of the loss of the supply with Russian natural gas following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

LNG (liquefied natural gas) is now a key element of Germany’s gas supply strategy. LNG is shipped to Germany by sea, where it is regasified and fed into the German natural gas grid. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs sees LNG as an important component for diversifying the national energy supply, which significantly contributes to Germany’s independence from individual supplier countries. At the same time, direct imports of LNG from various sources have a positive effect on prices in the liberalised German natural gas market.

Building the gas grid for tomorrow

Not least because of its geographical location, Gasunie Deutschland’s network plays a central role in developing Germany’s LNG infrastructure, which is reflected in extensive project activities. Through our pipeline construction projects, we are providing direct connections from the LNG terminals in Brunsbüttel and Stade to the German transmission network. The expansion of our network is H2-ready from the outset, meaning it is designed with a future perspective for hydrogen transport.Gasunie Deutschland is also investing in the expansion of key network locations such as the Achim West compressor station, to respond to changed gas flows in our pipeline network and to ensure the safe and reliable transport of the expected LNG volumes to customers in Germany and Europe. Together with the transmission network and projects in the Netherlands, Gasunie’s infrastructure thus fulfils the function of a central hub for supplying Northwest Europe with natural gas and green gases.

Hydrogen will play a central role in the sustainable, integrated energy system of the future. As a key component for decarbonising industry, it is both an important climate instrument and a prerequisite for maintaining long-term industrial competitiveness. In combination with green electricity, hydrogen can make a decisive contribution to the efficient use of renewable energies. The prerequisite for this is a powerful infrastructure for importing, storing and transporting hydrogen.

The Hyperlink project – a central building block of the European hydrogen infrastructure

Gasunie’s cross-border hydrogen infrastructure in the Netherlands and Germany connects key import and storage sites with industrial locations in Germany and Europe. With Hyperlink, Gasunie Deutschland is implementing a pioneering project to establish a transport infrastructure for hydrogen in Northwest Germany.Hyperlink accounts for around ten percent of the hydrogen core network, the backbone for building a hydrogen infrastructure in Germany. In addition to the direct connection to Gasunie’s Dutch network, Hyperlink also connects to Denmark’s national hydrogen network, one of Europe’s most important producers of green hydrogen. Around 70 percent of Hyperlink is based on converting existing natural gas pipelines – a resource-efficient solution that enables us to bring parts of Hyperlink into operation quickly.

Hyperlink 1 and 2 are part of the IPCEI (Important Projects of Common European Interest) Hy2Infra wave, which was approved by the EU Commission in February 2024. The German government subsequently gave the green light, by means of the associated grant decision, in July 2024. The funding under the grant is provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, the Lower Saxony Ministry for the Environment, Energy and Climate Action, the Lower Saxony Ministry for Economic Affairs, Transport, Construction and Digitalisation and the Senator for Economics, Ports and Transformation of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen.

Gasunie plays an active role in contributing to a smooth transition of the market area conversion. Decline in domestic production levels for low quality calorific gas (L gas) and falling L gas imports from the Netherlands present a key challenge. To tackle this problem, regions of Germany that are still supplied with L gas are switched over to high quality colorific gas (H gas). A total of about five million devices nationwide have to be switched to future-proof- H gas devices. In 2015, the first German public utility company (Municipality Schneverdingen-Neuenkirchen) connected to Gasunie  was converted to H gas.