At the beginning of July, GIE, the European Association of infrastructure operators for Renewable, Low-carbon and Natural Molecules, welcomed 2 new members, German LNG terminal operator DET and the Hungarian transmission operator FGSZ, bringing the community to 68 members in 25 countries and 3 observers.
“GIE members constitute a robust and steadfast network dedicated to gas transport and storage. In the short term, our immediate priority centres on preparing Europe for the next winters to actively support European Member States and their citizens. Safeguarding the security of supply in Europe is our key priority,” said Boyana Achovski, GIE Secretary General.
“But Europe’s journey with our infrastructure doesn’t stop here,” she continued. “Biomethane, a renewable gas generated within Europe, can be directly injected into today’s gas infrastructure with almost no new investments. It emerges as a readily available and economically viable alternative and represents an asset to strengthen Europe energy’s independence and foster sector integration.”
Regarding medium and long terms objectives, Ms Achovski underlined that they will keep their efforts to nurture the development of the hydrogen economy by retrofitting our infrastructure and the development of innovation. Over the decades, the role of GIE’s members will evolve to embrace more significant volumes of renewable and low-carbon gases to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors while bringing the necessary flexibility to RES.
“Our industry has pivotal responsibility and it’s good to welcome those two determined recruits to our membership,” she said. “Together we will pursue our mission to support the work of the EU institutions with gas market transparency and developments of our industry for energy security and decarbonisation.”
