We are Gasunie
We are Gasunie
At the heart of the north-western European energy market, Gasunie manages, maintains and develops infrastructure for the large-scale transmission, storage and import of energy and gasses. At the moment, this is mainly natural gas, but with the energy transition this is increasingly shifting towards CO2 and hydrogen. Besides this, we are driving the feed-in of biomethane and working on the construction and management of heat grids.
Our role in the energy value chain
Our infrastructure services connect gas producers to gas consumers. Our current infrastructure serves as an international hub for the supply and transit of methane (natural gas and biomethane) in north-western Europe. We give third parties non-discriminatory access to our services. This enables us to contribute to a liquid, competitive, reliable European energy market. We are furthermore investing in new connecting infrastructure for hydrogen, CO2 and heat. We are committed to accelerating the achievement of climate neutrality in the energy supply through these efforts.
The Dutch State is our sole shareholder. Our employees are spread over more than thirty locations in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Our headquarters are in Groningen (the Netherlands), and our main German office is located in Hanover.
Business model
Gasunie’s business units are clustered into three segments:
- Gasunie Transport Services (GTS) is responsible for managing high-pressure gas transmission in the Netherlands, developing the high-pressure gas transmission network and associated plants and facilities, and helping to facilitate a well-functioning market.
- Gasunie Deutschland (GUD) is responsible for managing high-pressure gas transmission in the north-western region of Germany, developing the gas network and the hydrogen network, managing the associated plants and facilities, and helping to facilitate a well-functioning market.
- Participating interests: In this segment, Gasunie focuses on developing and managing infrastructure for the transport and storage of CO2, hydrogen and heat, facilitating the production of biomethane, and facilitating natural gas flows to north-western Europe through LNG import terminals and interconnection pipelines.
Our gas TSOs and our participating interests
| In millions of euros | Gasunie Transport Services (fully regulated) | Gasunie Deutschland (fully regulated) | Participations (partially regulated/exempt from regulation) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset value at the end of 2024 | 6,483 | 1,950 | 1,835 |
| Revenue for the financial year 2024 | 824 | 241 | 295 |
GTS and GUD sell the available capacity on their networks to market parties. Customers feed gas into the network at entry points and take gas off from the network at exit points. To arrange this, they sign contracts to reserve capacity at specific network entry or exit points over a specific period (year, quarter, month or day).
GTS and GUD are fully regulated: regulatory authorities ACM (in the Netherlands) and BNetzA (in Germany) determine how much these companies may earn each year and the conditions they must apply for their customers. If either of these companies earn less than the amount previously set by the relevant authority, they may increase their tariffs in subsequent years; if they earn more, the additional revenue is returned to the market in the form of lower tariffs.
For the revenue and results of each segment see section 3 of the financial statements. At year-end 2024, Gasunie had 2,510 employees (2023: 2,190), 348 (2023: 293) of whom worked in Germany and 2,162 (2023: 1,897) in the Netherlands. We provide a breakdown of our workforce under Workforce in the Appendix to the Sustainability Statement appended to this report.
Drive and vision
The Netherlands has been able to count on Gasunie for more than 60 years now. We ensure energy security through our infrastructure, our expertise and, especially, our professional workforce. Gasunie’s network forms the basis of our energy supply and connects suppliers and customers in the Netherlands, Germany and surrounding countries.
To ensure that we can continue to have that connecting role in the future, we are converting our infrastructure right now, from a natural gas transmission system to a new system for the transport and storage of hydrogen, CO2 and heat. In this way, we are working towards ensuring that businesses and homes have access to ever cleaner energy. In the meantime, society can continue to rely on the reliable, affordable, sustainable transmission of natural gas for as long as our economy needs it.
Society, the economy and the energy supply have changed fundamentally over the course of our history. Gasunie has always been able to adapt to the demands of the times, and we aim to do so in the future, too.
More than ever, we see ourselves as a united and uniting whole, a connecting force between suppliers and customers, ambitions and actions, politics and industry. With an open mind, we look at how things can be done differently and we take initiative in energy projects that improve our society.
Now is the time for decisive action, the time for demonstrating the will to make it work together. Gasunie is taking the lead in connecting parties so that we can transform our energy supply together. We are doing this with our expertise and our infrastructure, with collective knowledge and shared adaptability. And we are doing this especially with our people, by rolling up our sleeves and looking to the future. We are doing this because new energy opens up a wealth of opportunities.
Our vision of the future is clear:
Our drive: New energy for a prosperous society.
Our vision: Ensure that industry, energy producers and homes are connected to affordable, reliable, zero-carbon energy infrastructure, now and in the future.
Vision for 2040
What does this all mean for our activities and operations? To determine this, we are looking ahead by an additional ten years and have formulated a Vision 2040.
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Our gas transmission network is being used very differently in 2040. While demand for natural gas continues to decline, this gas still remains important for security of supply in the coming years. Our transmission network is increasingly being repurposed for the transport of hydrogen and CO2. Natural gas transmission will remain important for as long as our economy and the electricity sector need it. Gasunie is still active in energy import terminals, both for LNG and hydrogen/hydrogen carriers. Our storage and other facilities contribute to ensuring a stable, reliable, resilient energy system. We are continuing to take measures to promote the production of biomethane, given its importance for ensuring a sustainable energy supply.
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In 2040, Gasunie is operating a hydrogen transmission network in the Netherlands and Germany. In 2040 we are connecting the industrial clusters in the Netherlands and Germany with ports, import terminals and producers of blue and green hydrogen. Our network is connected to those in the surrounding countries. We are also building the offshore hydrogen network, using the power of the North Sea to help provide a sustainable energy system. With these measures, we are also contributing to facilitating affordable transport of energy from elsewhere, balancing the broader energy system, and making better use of renewable energy.
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Thanks to our investments in CO2 transport, in 2040 the Netherlands is playing a leading role in achieving climate goals and combating climate change. Thanks to Gasunie, industrial companies in the Netherlands and Germany have succeeded in becoming more sustainable while remaining competitive. This is important for the economy in these two countries.
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With our investments in heat transport, we are helping to make buildings more energy efficient. In 2040, Gasunie is operating at least one large heat network.
In short, in 2040 Gasunie is still helping to ensure a reliable, affordable, sustainable energy system. People and businesses can continue to count on Gasunie.
Strategy up to 2030
We, as Gasunie, want to be ready for this future. After all, we have a great social responsibility when it comes to energy in the Netherlands. In 2024, we set out a new group strategy for the years up to and including 2030, which we will start working on from 2025.
With our energy infrastructure we bring together natural gas, CO2 storage, hydrogen, biomethane and heat and contribute to an integrated system for new energy. We, as a company, are increasingly looking beyond our own walls, looking at the needs of our customers on the market and at other parties in the energy system of tomorrow. At the same time, inside our company we are increasingly taking a cross-departmental and cross-specialism perspective. This we are doing because changing and more complex value chains demand new ways of thinking and working together.
With our Strategy 2030, we are taking ambitious, concrete steps towards realising our Vision 2040. Working safely comes first and foremost in everything we do. We also strive for sound management of our finances so that we have a solid basis for the work we do. And as a state-owned company we perform our work with a clear goal in mind: to serve the public interest.
Our success is driven by our employees. Gasunie has much to be proud of. We have high-quality technical expertise in house, an excellent reputation when it comes to reliability, and excellent working conditions. We are developing quickly, becoming ever more multifaceted, and taking the lead in the energy transition. To successfully implement our strategy, our people need to respond flexibly to external developments, changing policy rules, new technologies, and currently unforeseen market conditions. We manage large, complex projects, we drive innovation, and we create more social value. We are promoting a corporate culture that is in step with our new challenges and responsibilities and shaping an organisational structure in line with this. We want to remain an attractive employer in this tight labour market. This is how we are building together to shape a new, exciting, challenging chapter in Gasunie’s wonderful history.
Impact on sustainability topics
In 2024, our Executive Board set out and approved a new corporate social responsibility strategy for Gasunie. In this CSR strategy we describe our ambitions in four distinct focus areas.
Our Executive Board has also set out our sustainability strategy. The strategy also covers topics that our broader group of internal and external stakeholders do not currently see as being material topics for us, such as our relationship to biodiversity. By including a topic like biodiversity in our CSR strategy right now, we are acknowledging the growing importance that society attaches to biodiversity and preparing for our Executive Board possibly including this topic in the list of material topics in future years. In our Sustainability Statement, we explain how we carried out our double materiality assessment in the context of the CSRD.
Impact on society
Gasunie has a major influence on society. Managing and building safe, reliable, sustainable and affordable gas infrastructure has a major positive impact on society, providing prosperity and wellbeing. There are, however, also negative impacts: we ‘extract value’ in terms of making use of people and resources (who or that could possibly have been used for other purposes), and we contribute to global warming.
Our positive and negative impacts are described in our impact report. which comprises six sections, each devoted to a ‘capital’. In addition to financial capital, there is a section each for manufactured, intellectual, natural, social & relationship, and human capital. To gain a better understanding of the relative materiality of the impacts, we express the value in euros. We use the Handboek Impactmeting Infrabedrijven (guide to measuring impact for infrastructure companies) as a basis for this assessment.
Some of these impacts fit in with Gasunie’s strategy and so we have put these into quantitative terms. For the other, non-quantified impacts we state whether they are positive or negative. We have a responsibility to reduce our negative impact and increase our positive impact. By focusing on creating positive impact, we contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. For more information on how and why we are reporting on our impact, we refer the reader to the sections Guide to this report and Additional information.
Investment agenda
According to our current estimates, the value of Gasunie’s total net investment* agenda from 2025 through to 2030 will come in at around € 12 billion. Of this amount, two thirds is expected to go to energy transition projects and one third to investments in natural gas and LNG infrastructure. We expect some of these projects to, either immediately or gradually, be made subject to regulation, meaning that we will market these assets at regulated tariffs.
* We want to carry out a number of projects with partners. The chart shows only Gasunie’s share of the expenditures. The amounts shown are net of grants.
For each project we look at tailor-made solutions that will keep the development and operating risks under control. There is a dedicated decision-making process for each project. Investment decisions are made by the Executive Board. Every year, we re-estimate the extent of our investment agenda, weighing all the factors that will and may influence the development of large capital-intensive infrastructure projects.
Integrated infrastructure survey
Energy grids connect energy supply with energy demand. New networks are needed to transport sustainable energy and existing networks will need to be repurposed. This said, we do not know what the world will look like in 2030, let alone 2050. That is why Gasunie, TenneT, the regional grid operators and other stakeholders have drawn up ‘four-quadrant’ scenarios in recent years within which we expect the energy transition to take shape. All four scenarios envision a carbon-neutral energy supply in 2050.
An in-depth elaboration of these scenarios is presented in the Integrated Infrastructure Survey 2030-2050 (II3050). Thanks to this survey, grid operators can better determine which investments they will need to make in the coming decades. A follow-up infrastructure survey, in which we will include new research questions, will be published in 2025 or 2026.