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1 st November 2018. Wales & West Utilities Mod 0671 User Commitment. Background. The current process allows a User to request additional Firm Exit Capacity It also allows a User to reduce its Exit Capacity
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1st November 2018 Wales & West UtilitiesMod 0671 User Commitment
Background • The current process allows a User to request additional Firm Exit Capacity • It also allows a User to reduce its Exit Capacity • When an increase is request that would result in NTS having to release additional Incremental Obligated Exit Capacity then NTS can consider substitution (Exit Capacity Substitution and Revision Methodology Statement paragraph 32)
The problem • There are two problems • A User cannot suggest a flow exchange between two offtakes it has to request an increase and decrease separately, the process doesn’t really allow for Users who want to optimise for commercial or operational reasons. These may will be between two adjacent offtakes on the same leg of the NTS. • User commitment remains at an offtake even if the capacity has moved to another offtake • These mean that it is both risky and probably not commercially viable to try and move Firm Exit Capacity between offtakes • The first problem could be solved by a new process • The second problem could be solved by changes to the User Commitment regime for flow exchanges • We are not proposing a fundamental review of User Commitment
New process • The User would be able to propose a capacity exchange between two offtakes during July to September window • NTS would analyze this to see if it was possible without additional NTS investment • If so then any existing User Commitment would move with the capacity exchange
User commitment • If Incremental Obligated Exit Capacity is provided then the User Commitment applies to the whole of the Firm Exit Capacity at that offtake. • This can rapidly build up into a big User Commitment that means a User gets no benefit from offering Firm Exit Capacity reductions because they still have to pay the User Commitment. This potentially leads to inefficient hoarding of capacity meaning other Users cannot make use of it.