Russian gas at European energy market: Why adaptation is inevitable
Abstract Economic crisis of 2009–2010 plus steady decarbonisation of the European Union (EU) energy policy decrease EU energy demand while gas supplies to the EU continue to increase as well as its multiplicity. Thus competitive niche for gas in Europe tightens, especially for Russian gas supplies with rather non-flexible contractual structures and pricing mechanisms such as long-term gas export contracts (LTGEC) with oil indexation. On top of this, Third EU Energy Package changes the whole architecture of the wholesale EU internal gas market. So risks and uncertainties for oil-indexed LTGEC within this tightening market niche for gas increase. To effectively address them, LTGEC need to become more flexible and adaptable. Gazprom has recently started such adaptation of its LTGEC. Whether this will stay as a temporary step-back or will become company's new regular policy towards more flexible contractual structures and pricing mechanisms in Europe?
Russian Gas to Europe: From Long-Term Contracts, On-Border Trade and Destination Clauses to …?
In the coming decades Europe will remain strongly dependent on external energy supplies, and particularly on gas supplies from Russia. The author analyses the economic and political background of current contractual structures of Russian gas supplies to the EU in its historic context. He argues the objective character of these structures which consists of four major elements: long-term ‘take-and/or-pay’ contracts (LTCs); on-border (EU-15) trade; destination clauses; and the major role of transit. New contractual structures, which are influenced first of all by developments in the internal EU gas market, need to reflect the balance of interests of exporters, importers of gas and of transition states. The author analyses the still-important role of LTCs, both in external Russia-EU gas trade and in internal EU gas trade. He analyses the effect of the recent cancellation of destination clauses in Russian Gazprom's LTCs with ENI (Italy) and OMV (Austria). He explains the economic consequences of EU enlargement on Russia-EU ‘on-border’ gas trade and on gas transit in particular. The author analyses the role of the Energy Charter draft Transit Protocol in minimising transit risks; outlining three outstanding issues between Russia and the EU, which are to be settled by the two contracting parties to successfully finalise multilateral Transit Protocol negotiations.
A Short-Term and High-Resolution Distribution System Load Forecasting Approach Using Support Vector Regression With Hybrid Parameters Optimization
This paper proposes an approach for distribution system load forecasting, which aims to provide highly accurate short-term load forecasting with high resolution utilizing a support vector regression (SVR) based forecaster and a two-step hybrid parameters optimization method. Specifically, because the load profiles in distribution systems contain abrupt deviations, a data normalization is designed as the pretreatment for the collected historical load data. Then an SVR model is trained by the load data to forecast the future load. For better performance of SVR, a two-step hybrid optimization algorithm is proposed to determine the best parameters. In the first step of the hybrid optimization algorithm, a designed grid traverse algorithm (GTA) is used to narrow the parameters searching area from a global to local space. In the second step, based on the result of the GTA, particle swarm optimization is used to determine the best parameters in the local parameter space. After the best parameters are determined, the SVR model is used to forecast the short-term load deviation in the distribution system. The performance of the proposed approach is compared to some classic methods in later sections of this paper.