In August, an amendment to the Natural Gas Act entered into force, which obliges gas network operators to specify on their data exchange platform which consumer groups their customers belong to. The newly signed regulation specifies the procedure and principles for nomination to consumer groups.
According to the law, there are six consumer groups:
1) household consumers;
2) Other protected consumers, i.e. heating companies that use gas for residential heating;
3) Emergency backup power plant;
4) Consumers from providers of services necessary for the functioning of society, whose continuation of activity depends on the availability of gas supply (for example, food producers, agricultural enterprises, gas filling stations, hospitals, welfare institutions, etc.);
5) Other consumers whose expected gas supply interruption time is up to six hours;
6) Other consumers whose gas supply interruption time is more than six hours.
If the Estonian gas system enters an emergency situation, i.e. the demand for gas is greater than the availability of gas on the market, then, if necessary, gas consumption will be restricted from the last consumer group.
When classifying business consumers and other non-domestic consumers, i.e. the fourth consumer group, the most important factor when making a decision is whether it is a consumer whose loss of gas affects the functioning of society.
For the rest of the business consumers, the speed of disconnection from the gas network matters - whether it takes less or more than six hours for the network operator to reach the consumer from its legal location to cut off the consumer's gas consumption.
The classification of consumer groups must be done by network operators by October 19.