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PRISMA European Capacity Platform GmbH
PRISMA European Capacity Platform GmbH is the major marketplace in Europe for booking and trading gas capacity, and ensuring the movement of gas across markets. Founded in 2012, it currently provides a single location through which TSOs, SSOs and shippers can market gas capacity at both primary and secondary market levels. The platform facilitates operators to auction gas capacity to gas traders, namely primary market (primary capacity trading). At the same time, the gas traders can resell the unneeded capacity to other gas traders (secondary capacity trading). Currently, 45 transmission (TSO=Transmission system operator) and storage (SSO= Storage system operators) operators are on the platform via more than 1700 network points connecting 19 European markets. The establishment of this platform is intended to serve the competitive cross-border integration of the natural gas markets, an objective of the European Commission for energy supply. European operators aim to achieve a continuous integration of the European Gas Market, by marketing gas capacity with common standards and harmonious procedures in one single place.

History
In 2006, the German Gas Grid Access Ordinance (Gasnetzzugangsverordnung) obliged the German gas grid operators to create a uniform electronic trading platform for secondary trading in gas transport capacities. When the German rules came into force at that time, the entire secondary market of these transport capacities could only be transacted via the then Trac-x platform.[1] This meant that gas traders were only allowed to resell unused transport capacity rights to third parties via Trac-x. Secondary capacity trading was intended to help avoid contractual capacity bottlenecks in European networks, thereby promoting the liberalization of the gas market and improving competition.

In the course of the new Gas Network Access Ordinance of September 2010, the then Trac-x was commissioned by the German transmission system operators to set up and operate a platform for the allocation of primary capacities in Germany.[1] Whereas until then primary capacities had been marketed individually by each German network operator via its own portals, the new Gas Network Access Ordinance provided that from August 2011 all primary capacities of the German transmission system operators were to be marketed exclusively via a platform jointly operated by the transmission system operators. With the launch of Trac-x primary in August 2011, gas traders were able to bid for all firm capacities at German border and market area interconnection points in auctions on Trac-x primary for the first time. Interruptible capacities as well as capacities at all other German network points were allocated on Trac-x primary on a "first come, first served" basis from this point on. Trac-x primary thus replaced the previous online booking systems of the German transmission system operators.

In December 2012 via the signing of new Articles of Association, Trac-x changed its name to PRISMA European Capacity Platform GmbH. Since 1 April 2013, transmission system operators from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria have been marketing primary capacities at European network points via the joint European PRISMA platform for the first time.

In 2014 PRISMA also started to offer capacity on the secondary market, and since 2017 trading on the storage market has also been launched. It is currently one of the leading gas capacity trading platforms in Europe, connecting 19 markets and more than 1700 network points.