Company

The amendment to the Electricity Industry and Organization Act 2000 introduced the balance group model in Austria. In Austria, one license per balance area was issued to a imbalance settlement responsible party for the task of determining, pricing and settling balancing energy. For the balance area Ost, which covers around 95% of the Austrian market, the license was issued to AGCS Gas Clearing and Settlement AG.

AGCS, in its function as imbalance settlement responsible party (incl. market operator & billing agent - also called balance group coordinator or clearing agency), determines on the basis of planned feed-in or extraction from the grid (schedules) and the actual metering values (consumed volumes) the balancing energy for every participant of the Austrian gas market. The balance group model guarantees that balancing energy is allotted to the originator and billed accordingly. The energy volumes required for balancing are made available by the participants of the balancing energy market at daily auctions. Price determination for these energy volumes is done on the balancing energy market through competition among the active participants. The balance energy price is set on an hourly basis.