Germany sets conditions for industry gas saving scheme

BERLIN (Reuters) - German industry will be able to submit offers to cut gas consumption against public payment from mid-September in a scheme fleshed out by the country's nationwide gas market trading hub on Wednesday.

The so-called Load Reduction (LRD) product has been designed to help Germany save gas and avoid rationing by giving companies an incentive to temporarily stop gas consumption in exchange for money if that is something they can afford.

Trading Hub Europe (THE) said offers will be retrieved from Oct. 1 at the earliest, adding companies can offer any volume between 1 megawatt hour per hour (MWh/h) to 1,000 MWh/h.

"With the new product LRD, industrial consumers can make their switch-off potential available to the balancing gas market," said the operator in a statement on Wednesday.

It explained that if there is a need for balancing gas, the offer is submitted via the balancing group manager, and the provider can specify the lot size and lead time when submitting the offer, and also has a choice between two price models.

(Writing by Miranda Murray and Christoph Steitz; editing by Rachel More)