H2 core network: capacity booking under WaKandA and the platform from 01.10.2026

WaKandA: the determination behind hydrogen network access

WaKandA is the determination that, for the first time, gives access to the German hydrogen core network a binding capacity model. The acronym stands for the German title Wasserstoff Kapazitaeten Grundmodell und Abwicklung des Netzzugangs, in plain English the hydrogen capacity base model and network-access handling. It carries the case number BK7-24-01-015 and was decided by ruling chamber 7 of the Bundesnetzagentur, the BNetzA. The chamber matters: this is a chamber 7 procedure, the same chamber that runs the gas capacity rules, not chamber 9. The procedure was opened on 3 July 2024, the second consultation ran to 28 February 2025, and the determination was taken at the turn of October and November 2025.

The legal basis is section 28n(5)(1) together with section 29(1) EnWG. WaKandA was decided in tandem with its sister procedure WasABi, case number BK7-24-01-014, which governs hydrogen balancing. The two procedures are designed to fit together: capacity and balancing are the two sides of the same access regime, and the nomination deadlines under WaKandA have to be coherent with the balancing rules under WasABi. Both apply in full from 01.01.2028, which is the date the regime as a whole comes into force, even though the platform duty itself binds earlier.

It is worth drawing two clean lines at the outset. WaKandA is not WANDA. WANDA is the separate determination on network-charge formation and the amortisation mechanism, with the ramp-up charge and an amortisation account that runs to 2055: that is the financing of the core network, the money, and this article touches it only to place it, then links forward. WaKandA, by contrast, governs the capacity and the network access. The overarching legal frame around both sits in the EnWG, set out in the article on the EnWG amendment and the EU gas and hydrogen package.

The second line separates hydrogen from gas. The gas capacity regime now rests on its own set of chamber 7 determinations, KARLA among them, covered in the article on the replacement of the GasNZV by the new rulings. WaKandA is the standalone hydrogen counterpart. This piece delimits WaKandA against KARLA where it helps the reader, but it does not repeat the gas rules. The point throughout is the hydrogen booking regime and the common platform from 01.10.2026.

The hydrogen entry-exit system and its two capacity products

Access to the core network follows a Germany-wide entry-exit model. Under section 28n(1) EnWG all hydrogen network operators form a single common market area, into which every entry and exit point is drawn. Transport customers do not book a route from A to B. Instead they book entry capacity at one point and exit capacity at another, independently of each other, and trade in between at the virtual trading point inside the market area. The advantage is flexibility: a booker is not tied to a fixed transport path and can recombine entry and exit as supply and offtake change.

The product range is deliberately lean. WaKandA defines exactly two capacity products. The first is firm hydrogen network capacity, FWK, which the operator guarantees and may not interrupt for commercial reasons. The second is interruptible hydrogen network capacity, UWK, which the operator may interrupt when the network is constrained and which is therefore cheaper and suited to bookers who can tolerate occasional curtailment. Each product is offered on an annual, monthly and daily basis, so a booker can match the term of the right to the certainty of its demand.

One difference from the gas regime is explicit and important: hydrogen has no conditional capacity products. In gas the product shelf carries conditional and other specialised products on top of firm and interruptible capacity. WaKandA leaves these out by design, which keeps the hydrogen shelf to firm and interruptible only. For a booker coming from the gas world this is the first habit to unlearn: the choice is FWK or UWK, and the term, nothing more elaborate. The simpler shelf is appropriate to a market that is only just ramping up.

The common booking platform from 01.10.2026

The core of the determination is a platform duty with a hard date. From 01.10.2026 the hydrogen network operators must allocate the entire entry and exit capacity over a common capacity booking platform. In the determination's wording this is the common capacity booking platform, also the primary capacity booking platform. The operators may run it themselves or have an agreed third party run it. There is as yet no public product name for it, no equivalent of the PRISMA brand familiar from gas, but the function is the same: one shared front end through which all primary capacity is allocated.

The platform must support two allocation methods. The first is first-come-first-served, FCFS, where capacity goes to whoever books it first while supply lasts. The second is auction. The auction is not optional once a point is contested: it becomes mandatory as soon as more than 80 percent of the bookable firm capacity of a term is demanded at a point. Below that threshold FCFS can serve, above it the operator must auction, so that scarce capacity is allocated by price rather than by speed of clicking. To keep capacity available for shorter horizons, at least 10 percent of the technical capacity per point is withheld for within-year products, so that a booker arriving later is not locked out by long-term annual bookings.

The platform is not only a primary-allocation tool. The determination requires it to enable the resale of capacity to third parties as secondary capacity, so that a genuine secondary market can form. A booker who holds firm capacity it no longer needs can pass it on, and a booker who missed the primary round has a route to acquire it. The platform must be built for mass-market handling over the internet, which signals the intent that this becomes routine business for many bookers, not a bespoke negotiation per deal. Guarantees of origin for the molecules that flow through this capacity are a separate matter, covered in the article on guarantees of origin for green gases.

From connection to nomination: a booker's path

Booking is more than a single click. From the contract through registration to the daily nomination, there is a clear sequence, and a booker who understands it can prepare each step in good time rather than discovering the dependencies under deadline pressure. The path runs in one direction: register, contract, book, confirm, nominate.

The first steps are contractual. Transport customers conclude entry and exit contracts with the network operators, unless they trade purely at the virtual trading point inside the market area and never touch a physical point. Before any booking, however, comes registration, ideally arranged as a one-stop shop through a single central registration page, so that a booker registers once rather than separately with every operator. Getting registered and contracted early is the part most easily underestimated, because it gates everything that follows.

Then comes the booking itself, on the common platform from 01.10.2026, by FCFS or by auction depending on how contested the point is. Once capacity is allocated, the booker receives a confirmation that the capacity is firm, FWK, or interruptible, UWK. From there the regime moves into operations: transport is handled through balancing groups, with nomination and renomination of the quantities the booker intends to move. Because the nomination deadlines must be coherent with the WasABi balancing rules, a booker has to align its balancing-group processes with the platform rather than treat the two as separate worlds. The distribution-network side of the wider transformation, where local grids are converted, repurposed or retired, is a different question, set out in the article on the gas grid transformation plan.

Clusters rather than one network: the ramp-up has limits

The Germany-wide market area is a target state, not the picture on day one. In the ramp-up the market area is not a single fully meshed network but a collection of clusters, and that reality shapes what can actually be booked firm today. A booker who assumes a seamless national grid from the start will overestimate what firm capacity is available between distant points.

During the ramp-up, the allocation of entry and exit capacity can be limited to one or more clusters, the building blocks the market area first consists of. Cross-cluster transport is guaranteed on a firm basis as far as the network technically allows, and where it does not, it is handled through a separate procedure, in part by auction. The honest implication is that between clusters not yet physically connected, unlimited firm capacity is not possible. As the network is meshed further and the clusters are joined, that limitation dissolves, and the entry-exit promise of a single market area is progressively redeemed.

The term structure reflects the long horizon of the build-out. The maximum term of annual capacity contracts is 15 years. The European frame allows up to 20 years for infrastructure completed before 01.01.2028 and 15 years for infrastructure completed after that date, which is why 15 years is the relevant ceiling for the new pipelines the core network is adding. The scale behind these terms is large: the approved core network spans 9,040 km and EUR 18.9 billion, was approved on 22 October 2024, is to be complete by 2032 and consists of about 60 percent converted natural-gas pipelines. A booker contracting for 15 years is contracting against an asset that is itself still being built.

What bookers should do now

The platform duty from 01.10.2026 is an operational date, not a regulatory footnote. Anyone who will need capacity should prepare now, because registration, contracting and balancing-group setup cannot be done overnight once the platform opens. The four steps below turn the determination into a near-term action list.

• Validate the real demand per cluster and term. Establish the genuine entry and exit need for each cluster and each term, and lay it against the available core-network profile, rather than assuming firm capacity between clusters that are not yet connected.
• Prepare registration, contracts and the platform connection early. Get registration, entry and exit contracts and the connection to the booking platform in place in good time, including the balancing group and the nomination and renomination processes coherent with WasABi.
• Separate WaKandA from WANDA in the business case. Treat capacity under WaKandA and the network charge and ramp-up charge under WANDA as two distinct items, and carry both into the business case so the cost of access is not understated.
• Understand the line to the interim reservation. Know that the voluntary reservation from 19.03.2026 is the interim phase and is not the same as a binding booking under WaKandA, so a reservation today does not by itself secure firm capacity from 01.10.2026.

Further reading

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