02.04.2024
With the MAHS (Market Assessment for Hydrogen Storage), INES is launching a two-month market survey to determine the demand for hydrogen storage in Germany. The MAHS is aimed at companies from Germany and abroad that intend to store hydrogen in Germany. In this way, INES is creating an important decision-making basis for politics and industry in order to further advance the development of necessary hydrogen storage facilities in Germany.
On April 2, 2024, the Initiative Energien Speichern e.V. (INES) launched a market survey (MAHS - Market Assessment for Hydrogen Storage) to determine the demand for hydrogen storage in Germany. The MAHS will take place over a period of two months from April 2, 2024 to May 31, 2024. Registration is required to participate, which can be done at the following link:
https://energien-speichern.de/en/mahs-survey/
After the registration has been checked for plausibility, participants will be sent an individual access link to the MAHS (usually on the same working day). All companies from Germany or abroad that intend to store hydrogen in Germany in the future (e.g. importers, trading companies, hydrogen network operators, industrial companies, municipal utilities) can participate in the MAHS. Participation in the MAHS is possible in German and English. In order to participate in the MAHS, it is not absolutely necessary to be able to quantitatively estimate your own hydrogen storage demand. In addition to direct information, the MAHS also provides indirect ways for companies to communicate hydrogen storage demands by providing information on the volume of hydrogen and its intended use.
INES will explain the MAHS in detail and answer questions in a webinar on April 9, 2024 from 10:00 to 12:00.
The prerequisite for active participation in the webinar is successful registration for the MAHS as a participant. Media representatives will also be given access to the webinar and can also take part in the discussion and ask questions to INES. The webinar will be recorded and made publicly available on the INES YouTube channel afterwards.
With the MAHS, INES collects the specific demand structures for hydrogen storage systems and requests relevant information for investments in the development of hydrogen storage systems. The purpose of the market survey is to provide market players with the best possible access to hydrogen storage capacities in the future. The participants therefore not only provide important impulses for necessary investments in hydrogen storage, but can also provide INES with information on their specific hydrogen storage requirements via the MAHS.
With the MAHS, INES is creating a bundled Germany-wide basis for storage operators to comply with the future obligation under Article 8 ("Market assessment for renewable gas and low-carbon gas by LNG and storage system operators") of the EU Regulation on the internal markets for renewable and natural gases and hydrogen ("EU Gas Package"). The regulation requires storage operators to carry out a market assessment for investments in storage facilities for renewable and low-carbon gases, including hydrogen, at least every two years. The relevant regulatory authorities must be informed of the result of the market assessment.
Achim Zerres, Head of the Energy Regulation Department at the Federal Network Agency, comments on the launch of MAHS as follows: "The Federal Network Agency welcomes the fact that INES is already creating the basis for a regular survey of hydrogen storage requirements and thus bundling the needs of the players in order to provide the best possible support for the timely development of hydrogen storage capacities in line with demand.“
Sebastian Heinermann, INES Managing Director, explains on the occasion of the launch of the MAHS: "The MAHS makes a significant contribution to resolving existing uncertainties and thus creates an important basis for decision-making for politics and industry in order to drive forward the development of necessary hydrogen storage facilities in Germany and enable the efficient establishment of a hydrogen infrastructure. The next step should be to set out a market framework in the planned hydrogen storage strategy that guarantees investment security for storage operators. We recommend transferring the idea of contracts for difference to the area of hydrogen storage. Contracts for difference are a way of keeping regulatory intervention to a minimum in order to create investment security and at the same time maintain the market economy perspective for an area which - unlike the hydrogen network - is not a natural monopoly.“