Changes from plenary report to adopted text

Removed(21b) ‘hydrogen distribution’ means the transport of hydrogen through local or regional pipeline networks with a view to its delivery to customers, excluding supply;

Removed(22) ‘hydrogen network operator’ means a natural or legal person who carries out the function of hydrogen transport and is responsible for operating, ensuring the maintenance of, and, if necessary, developing the hydrogen network in a given area and, where applicable, its interconnections with other hydrogen networks, and for ensuring the long-term ability of the system to meet reasonable demands for the transport of hydrogen;

Removed(22a) ‘hydrogen transmission network operator’ means a hydrogen network operator that carries the function of the transport of hydrogen through a network and that contains mainly high-pressure pipelines, other than an upstream pipeline network and other than the part of high-pressure pipelines primarily used in the context of local distribution of hydrogen, with a view to the delivery of hydrogen to customers, excluding supply;

Removed(22b) ‘hydrogen distribution network operator’ means a hydrogen network operator that carries the function of the transport of hydrogen through local or regional pipeline networks with a view to its delivery to customers, excluding supply;

Removed(23) ‘supply’ means the sale, including resale, of natural gas, including LNG, or hydrogen, including liquid hydrogen, to customers;

Removed(24) ‘supply undertaking’ means a natural or legal person who carries out the function of supply;

Removed(24a) ‘hydrogen supply undertaking’ means a natural or legal person who carries out the function of hydrogen supply;

Removed(25) ‘storage facility’ means a facility used for the stocking of natural gas and owned and/or operated by a natural gas undertaking, including the part of LNG facilities used for storage but excluding the portion used for production operations, and excluding facilities reserved exclusively for transmission system operators in carrying out their functions;

Removed(26) ‘storage system operator’ means a natural or legal person who carries out the function of storage of natural gas and is responsible for operating a storage facility;

Removed(27) ‘LNG facility’ means a terminal which is used for the liquefaction of natural gas or the importation, offloading, and re-gasification of LNG, including ancillary services and temporary storage necessary for the re-gasification process and subsequent delivery to the transmission system, excluding any part of LNG terminals used for storage;

Removed(28) ‘LNG system operator’ means a natural or legal person who carries out the function of liquefaction of natural gas, or the importation, offloading, and re-gasification of LNG and is responsible for operating a LNG facility;

Removed(29) ‘system’ means any transmission networks, distribution networks, LNG facilities or storage facilities owned or operated by a natural gas undertaking, including linepack and its facilities supplying ancillary services and those of related undertakings necessary for providing access to transmission, distribution and LNG;

Removed(30) ‘ancillary services’ means all services necessary for access to and the operation of transmission networks, distribution networks, LNG facilities, or storage facilities, including load balancing, blending and injection of inert gas, excluding facilities reserved exclusively for transmission system operators carrying out their functions;

Removed(31) ‘ natural gas linepack’ means the storage of natural gas by compression in gas transmission and distribution systems, excluding facilities reserved for transmission system operators carrying out their functions;

Removed(32) ‘interconnected system’ means a number of systems which are linked with each other;

Removed(33) ‘interconnector’ means a transmission line which crosses or spans a border between Member States for the purpose of connecting the national transmission system of those Member States or a transmission line between a Member State and a third country up to the territory of the Member States or the territorial sea of that Member State;

Removed(34) ‘hydrogen interconnector’ means a hydrogen network which crosses or spans a border between Member States, or between a Member State and a third country up to the territory of the Member States or the territorial sea of that Member State;

Removed(35) ‘direct line’ means a natural gas pipeline complementary to the interconnected system;

Removed(36) ‘integrated natural gas undertaking’ means a vertically or horizontally integrated undertaking;

Removed(37) ‘vertically integrated undertaking’ means a natural gas undertaking or a group of natural gas undertakings or a hydrogen undertaking or group of hydrogen undertakings where the same person or the same persons are entitled, directly or indirectly, to exercise control, and where the undertaking or group of undertakings perform at least one of the functions of transmission, distribution, hydrogen transport, hydrogen terminal operation, LNG or natural gas or hydrogen storage, and at least one of the functions of production or supply of natural gas or of hydrogen;

Removed(38) ‘horizontally integrated undertaking’ means an undertaking performing at least one of the functions of production, transmission, distribution, supply or storage of natural gas, and a non-natural gas activity;

Removed(39) ‘related undertaking’ means an affiliated undertaking as defined in point (12), of Article 2 of Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council, or an undertaking which belongs to the same shareholders;

Removed(40) ‘system user’ means a natural or legal person who supplies to ▌or is supplied by the system;

Removed(41) ‘customer’ means a wholesale customer or a final customer ▌or a natural gas or hydrogen undertaking which purchases gas;

Removed(42) ‘household customer’ means a customer who purchases gas for ▌own household consumption;

Removed(43) ‘non-household customer’ means a customer who purchases gas which is not for ▌ own household use;

Removed(44) ‘final customer’ means a customer who purchases gas for ▌own use;

Removed(45) ‘wholesale customer’ means a natural or legal person other than a transmission system operator or a distribution system operator, who purchases gas for the purpose of resale inside or outside the system where that person is established;

Removed(46) ‘microenterprise’ means an enterprise which employs fewer than 10 persons and whose annual turnover or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 2 million;

Removed(47) ‘small enterprise’ means an enterprise which employs fewer than 50 persons and whose annual turnover and/or annual balance sheet total does not exceed EUR 10 million;

Removed(48) ‘security’ means both security of supply of natural gas and technical safety;

Removed(49) ‘gas supply contract’ means a contract for the supply of gas, excluding a gas derivative;

Removed(50) ‘gas derivative’ means a financial instrument specified in point 5, 6 or 7 of Section C of Annex I to Directive 2014/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Commission where that financial instrument relates to gas;

Removed(51) ‘control’ means any rights, contracts or any other means which, either separately or in combination and having regard to the considerations of fact or law involved, confer the possibility of exercising decisive influence on an undertaking, in particular by:

Removed(a) ownership or the right to use all or part of the assets of an undertaking;

Removed(b) rights or contracts which confer decisive influence on the composition, voting or decisions of the organs of an undertaking;

Removed(52) ‘long-term contract’ means a supply contract exceeding one year;

Removed(53) ‘entry-exit system’ means an access model for natural gas transmission or distribution systems where system users book capacity rights independently on entry and exit points;

Removed(54) ‘balancing zone’ means an entry-exit system to which a specific balancing regime is applicable, including distribution systems or parts of them;

Removed(55) ‘virtual trading point’ means a non-physical commercial point within an entry-exit system where gas is exchanged between a seller and a buyer without the need to book ▌ capacity;

Removed(56) ‘entry point’ means a point subject to booking procedures by network users which provides access to an entry-exit system and enables gas flows in the entry-exit system;

Removed(57) ‘exit point’ means a point subject to booking procedures by network users which provides access to an entry-exit system and enables gas flows out of the entry exit system;

Removed(58) ‘interconnection point’ means a physical or virtual point which connects adjacent entry-exit systems or connecting an entry-exit system with an interconnector, in so far as those points are subject to booking procedures by network users;

Removed(59) ‘virtual interconnection point’ means two or more interconnection points which connect the same two adjacent entry-exit systems, integrated together for the purposes of providing a single capacity service;

Removed(60) ‘market participant’ means a natural or legal person who buys, sells or produces gas or who is an operator of storage services including through the placing of orders to trade in one or more gas markets including balancing markets;

Removed(61) ‘contract termination fee’ means a charge or penalty imposed on customers by suppliers or market participants ▌ for terminating a gas supply or service contract;

Removed(62) ‘switching-related fee’ means a charge or penalty for changing suppliers or market participants, including contract termination fees, that is directly or indirectly imposed on customers by suppliers, market participants or system operators;

Removed(63) ‘billing information’ means the information provided on a final customer's bill, excluding any request for payment;

Removed(64) ‘conventional meter’ means an analogue or electronic meter with no capability to both transmit and receive data;

Removed(65) ‘smart metering system’ means an electronic system that is capable of measuring gas fed into the grid or gas consumed from the grid, providing more information than a conventional meter, and that is capable of transmitting and receiving data for information, monitoring and control purposes, using a form of electronic communication;

Removed(66) ‘interoperability’ means, in the context of smart metering, the ability of two or more energy or communication networks, systems, devices, applications or components to interwork to exchange and use information in order to perform required functions;

Removed(67) ‘most recent available’ means, in the context of smart metering data, that it is provided within a period matching the shortest settlement period in the national market;

Removed(68) ‘best available techniques’ means, in the context of data protection and security in a smart metering environment, the most effective, advanced and practically suitable techniques for providing, in principle, the basis for complying with the Union data protection and security rules;

Removed(69) ‘energy poverty’ means a household’s inability linked to meet, due to their unaffordability its basic energy supply needs and lack of access to essential energy services to ensure basic levels of comfort and health and a decent standard of living, including adequate heating and cooling, lighting, and energy to power appliances, in the relevant national context, existing social policy and other relevant policies, as a result of an insufficient disposable income, high energy expenditures and poor energy efficiency of homes;

Removed▌

Removed(71) ‘active customer’ means a final ▌customer of natural gas, or a group of jointly acting final ▌customers of natural gas, who consumes or stores renewable gas which is produced within its premises located within confined boundaries or, where permitted by the Member State concerned, within other premises, or who sells self-produced renewable gas using the natural gas system, or who participates in energy efficiency schemes, provided that those activities do not constitute the final customer’s primary commercial or professional activity;

Removed(71a) 'energy efficiency first’ means energy efficiency first as defined in Article 2, point (18), of Regulation (EU) 2018/1999;

Removed(71b) 'dedicated hydrogen asset’ means dedicated hydrogen asset as defined Article 2, point (17), of Regulation (EU) 2022/869;

Removed(71c) 'repurposing’ means repurposing as defined Article 2, point (18), of Regulation (EU) 2022/869.

RemovedGeneral rules for the organisation of the market