Update on IUK Capacity Offering

Belgium is facing a very tight power supply during Winter 2018/19 which is, in part, driven by the outages at Engie Electrabel’s nuclear power plants. IUK operates electric driven compressors at our Zeebrugge terminal and as part of our supply agreement, IUK’s electricity provider may issue a demand response request. Given the current stress on the Belgian power market, our supplier has indicated that there is possibility of a demand response request being issued.

While the risk may be considered as low, IUK is amending its product offering for the Q1 and Q4 of any calendar year to reduce the potential impact of a demand response request. As such;

• IUK will market 70% of its technical Belgium to UK capacity as firm capacity for Q1 and Q4 of any calendar year. This firm capacity will not be impacted by a demand response request.
• IUK will market the additional 30% of its technical Belgium to UK capacity for Q1 and Q4 of any calendar year as interruptible capacity. The holders of interruptible capacity will have the option to flow through the demand response hours or reduce their gas flow nominations throughout the day.

For more information please see our publication here.

In light of this adjustment, IUK is introducing an exceptional charge in the IUK Charging Statement which will be applied to holders of interruptible capacity pro rata to their flow allocations through the Interconnector during the day where a demand response request is in place.

The updated Charging Statement is available here.