09 Security of supply

Transmission of natural gas is currently Gasunie’s core function. In the Netherlands, this function is fulfilled by Gasunie Transport Services (GTS) and in north-western Germany by Gasunie Deutschland (GUD). As transmission system operators (TSOs), they are responsible for the management, proper functioning and development of high-pressure transmission networks. The value of the natural gas transported and stored cannot be overstated.

GTS provides gas transmission services and related services, such as quality conversion and balancing. GTS’ responsibilities include:

• managing, operating and developing the gas transport network on an economic basis;
• monitoring a safe, reliable and efficient transport system;
• providing sufficient transport capacity;
• maintaining the connection with other networks, both national and international;
• performance of a number of public duties (see below);
• managing gas quality; and
• balancing the network.

New legislation is being prepared that will assign GTS the statutory duty of providing annual advice on the security of the natural gas supply.

Public duties in the Netherlands

The Dutch Gas Act also assigns GTS a number of duties that serve the public interest.

• GTS must take action in the situation where a natural gas supplier fails to deliver gas to small-scale consumers. In such a situation, GTS is required to guide the procedure as well as possible – possibly by temporarily taking over the supply of gas – so that the small-scale consumers affected can, in accordance with the procedure, get their gas from another supplier as soon as possible.
• GTS is also responsible for ensuring that small-scale consumers (i.e. homes, large buildings and small industrial parties) continue to receive sufficient gas when temperatures drop to -9°C or lower. To fulfil this duty, GTS must contract volume and capacity itself. 
• Lastly, GTS ensures that the gas from small fields can be included in the gas transmission system.

ACM supervises the execution of GTS’ statutory duties. The Dutch Gas Act sets certain requirements for the way GTS performs its duties in the Netherlands.

Duties in the German network

In Germany, Gasunie subsidiary GUD has statutory and public duties that are broadly comparable to those of GTS. German regulator BNetzA oversees the fulfilment of these duties.

Climate change adaptation

Security of supply is of great importance to Gasunie. Accordingly, our climate change adaptation policy is aimed at supporting this material topic. Gasunie’s assets are and will continue to be designed with safe, long-term use in mind. When designing, building, modifying and managing our current and future assets, applying a risk-based approach we study how we should take into account the potential consequences of climate change – such as the impact of heat, drought, extreme precipitation and flooding – during the expected service life of the asset.

Climate change adaptation risks

In 2024, we set up a process to identify, assess and record risks, measures and adaptation plans for our networks. In 2025, together with other network operators, social organisations and the government, we will investigate which climate data we will use to determine these risks and measures.

We want to conduct a comprehensive analysis of each asset every five years to assess the climate risks associated with that asset. We expect to have the first results available in 2025.

Existing and new assets

It is our standard approach to take the risks of climate change into account when developing new assets. For the existing network, we will be running national and regional stress tests to see to what extent the existing network is sufficiently robust to remain fit for purpose when the climate changes further. These stress tests can be conducted in partnership with other network operators and as needed in each of the Netherlands’ emergency services/crisis management regions (referred to as ‘Safety Regions’).

Safety

Gasunie’s networks are classified as ‘vital infrastructure’. Energy transmission and storage is so vital to society that outages or interruptions can lead to serious social disruption and even pose a threat to national security.

The changing geopolitical situation in recent years has given rise to new threats. The developments have led to an increased focus on our current security measures in all domains and an increased focus on business continuity and resilience. There is a general awareness that these aspects need ongoing attention.

Our focus on security is threefold.

• Together with fellow network operators and through the Netbeheer Nederland trade association, we have designed a resilience strategy that forms the basis for a Gasunie resilience programme that addresses military and hybrid threats and that we also align with the Dutch Ministry of Climate Policy and Green Growth. 
• We fulfil an advisory role in the legislative process for acts such as the Energy Act [Energiewet] (which contains passages on the elimination of risk from procurement and tendering), the Critical Entities Resilience Act [Wet weerbaarheid kritieke entiteiten] and the Cybersecurity Act [Cyberbeveiligingswet] (both currently in the consultation phase). 
• In building new energy infrastructure and replacing parts of existing infrastructure, we go by the construction principle of ‘security by design’.

Physical security

Our security and business continuity measures, resilience and results in 2024 were well aligned with internal and external physical threats. There were no disruptions with an impact on the essential business processes and/or services. Potential crisis situations and business disruptions were adequately resolved.

IT security

In 2024, our security and business continuity measures, resilience and results were well aligned with internal and external digital threats. There were no IT disruptions with an impact on the essential business processes and/or services. Potential crisis situations and business disruptions, as a result of vulnerabilities in suppliers’ software for example, were adequately resolved.

What Gasunie is doing in the area of IT security management

• IT security, business continuity and crisis management are all part of our governance structure.
• We continuously monitor systems, networks, applications and services for incidents, events and threats, such as data breaches and cyberattacks, for example.
• We continuously adapt our policies and crisis plans based on the latest internal and external risk assessments.
• We conduct regular internal and external security audits and penetration tests of our systems, products and practices that affect user data and access to the systems.
• Annual audits are conducted as part of our ISO 27001 certification; for the last ten years these have been carried out for the Netherlands and for Germany by independent auditors, with a positive outcome.
• Government authorities also conduct cybersecurity inspections based on EU and national laws and regulations, and we additionally carry out self-evaluations as required by government bodies in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK.
• We participate in various cybersecurity and crisis management exercises organised by the energy transmission sector and the government, both periodic and one-off.
• We run company-wide awareness programmes in the Netherlands and Germany that cover all aspects of information security and are aimed at raising awareness of information security risks among our staff and improving their behaviour in this area.

IT security in Germany

To address IT risks in a constantly changing environment, in 2024 GUD established a new ‘Resilience & Security’ department, under which activities in the areas of information security, physical security, business continuity management, and emergency response management are bundled. This approach is helping GUD prepare for the introduction of the NIS-2 Implementation and Cybersecurity Strengthening Act [NIS2UmsuCG] and the KRITIS Umbrella Act [KRITIS Parapluwet], two draft laws currently passing through the German legislative process.

LNG Netherlands (MT)

As a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the import of Russian gas to north-western Europe over the existing pipeline connections has stopped completely. To counter this, the import of Norwegian pipeline gas and of LNG supplied by sea tankers has increased sharply.

In the Netherlands, in 2024 Gasunie and Vopak worked on expanding the capacity of Gate terminal – the permanent LNG terminal located in the Maasvlakte industrial area – through the construction of a fourth tank. This expansion, for which the investment decision was taken in 2023, will increase Gate’s regasification capacity from 12 bcm to 16 bcm. At the temporary terminal at the port of Eemshaven, Gasunie and Vopak are investigating a technical optimisation to increase the capacity of the terminal from 8 bcm to 10 bcm. The investments at the Maasvlakte industrial park can contribute towards the transition to hydrogen.

The two FSRUs (floating LNG terminals) that make up the EemsEnergyTerminal were initially chartered for a period of five years, though Gasunie and Vopak are investigating whether, for the sake of energy security and the energy transition, the terminal should remain in operation longer. A joint market consultation we carried out in 2024 showed that there is market demand at the port of Eemshaven for the import of LNG and hydrogen and the export of CO₂. We will make a decision on the extension in 2025.

LNG Germany (MT)

Gasunie will be the future operator of German LNG, the permanent terminal in Brunsbüttel that is expected to be able to regasify around 10 bcm of LNG annually from the end of 2026 and supply the gas to the German grid. In 2024, the state of Schleswig-Holstein issued German LNG the building permit for the terminal. The project costs of € 1.3 billion will be borne by the three shareholders: Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) on behalf of the German government (50%), RWE (10%), and Gasunie (40%).

Market parties are currently operating five FSRUs on the German coast along the North Sea and Baltic Sea. Because two of these are moored in the Gasunie Deutschland network area (at Brunsbüttel and Stade), GUD was commissioned to connect these terminals to the grid. In the spring of 2024, the connecting pipelines for both terminals were completed on time, despite very challenging weather and soil conditions.

In Brunsbüttel and Stade, construction on the two permanent dockside terminals (one of which is German LNG) also started last year. These terminals, which are intended to replace the FSRUs, are scheduled to be commissioned in 2026-2027. For GUD, this means that the pipeline connection between its network and Stade will need to be extended by 18 kilometres. Construction is scheduled to start in early 2026.

To handle the large volumes of gas entering the network from the LNG terminals, further up its network GUD is building a new pipeline stretching out over some 87 kilometres. Construction will get underway early in 2026. The existing NEL pipeline will be used to transport the gas to Greifswald.

Gas pressure will need to be increased along this section of pipeline. The existing compressor station in Embsen has insufficient capacity for this, which is why the new compressor station at Achim West is being added. The final investment decision has been made and construction will start in early 2025. The intention is to commission the first two electric compressor units at the end of 2026 and the third unit at the beginning of 2027. This will reduce GUD’s natural gas consumption significantly from 2027 onwards.

Besides the import of LNG, imports from Norway form another key support for the security of gas supply in Germany. Located on the North Sea coast, the Rysum compressor station provides the pressure to enable transmission capacity for Norwegian gas volumes. Since the supply of Russian gas through the Nord Stream pipeline was cut off, Rysum has been operating virtually non-stop all year long. We will be upgrading the Rysum station and making it more energy efficient.

In Germany, the term is understood to mean the number of times that our infrastructure was unable to supply sufficient gas to customers. The scores attained by Gasunie in the Netherlands and Germany are added together to produce the total score. The standard we have set ourselves is that the number of transmission interruptions in any one year can never exceed six.

Uncontrolled events

Uncontrolled events are incidents involving gas leaks (of natural gas, biomethane, hydrogen, nitrogen, air) of over 14,000m³ from a Gasunie-operated pressure holder with a rated pressure of 8 bar or higher. From 2022, we tightened the requirement for the maximum number of uncontrolled events, from 3 annually to no more than 2 per year.

As regards both transmission interruptions and uncontrolled events, the information has not been validated by an external party other than our auditor.

Uncontrolled events

No uncontrolled events occurred in 2024 (2023: 0).