Danish Grid Issues Winter Outlook

Danish gas and power grid operator Energinet has said its gas grid should cope this coming winter, even if gas demand is high.

The long-scheduled closure of the country's Tyra offshore gas hub from late 2019 until mid-2022 will be more of a challenge: it provides 90% of Danish supplies, so imports via Germany will be needed.

Issuing its annual security of supply report, Energinet said this winter 2018/2019 its Danish gas transmission system will be robust in relation to technical incidents, it said, as there will be access to sufficient volumes of gas from the North Sea, Germany,  and gas storage facilities. Biogas volumes injected into the gas grid – especially from Denmark's pig farming –  will continue to increase helping to bolster security of supply. Biogas' share of the annual Danish gas consumption is expected to average 8% in 2018 and one particular day this summer peaked at 26%.

Energinet said it declared an 'Early Warning' prior to the coldest snap last winter: February 27 2018. This is the lowest of three crisis levels in the EU-regulation for security of gas supply, and Denmark has only declared it once before. The Early Warning allowed Energinet to remove a price cap, so that it made more economic sense to use gas at home than export it to Germany, which rebalanced the grid.

The experience could be instructive as Denmark forgoes its main source of indigenous gas supply from late 2019 until mid-2022. Energinet Gas TSO chief executive Torben Brabo said that: "Gas market players are responsible for supplying the Danish gas customers with enough gas, which is something that requires special attention when the gas production from Tyra closes from 2019 until 2022 and our work in 2018 can be seen as an instructive rehearsal for some of the challenges we face in the coming period."

Gas from the Tyra gas field in the Danish North Sea will cease from November 2019 until July 2022 as the Tyra platform is rebuilt; 90% of Danish gas production is processed on Tyra. 

By late 2022, the Danish gas system should also be connected to the gas systems in Norway and Poland, thanks to the Baltic Pipe project that took final investment decision last week.