H2 core network: capacity booking under WaKandA and the platform from 01.01.2028

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 ruling chamber 7 adopted the determination on 27 October 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 and sets its own hydrogen network deadlines for the data platform and the start of 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 from 01.01.2028, the date the regime as a whole takes effect and the platform duty starts.

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 01.01.2028.

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 01.01.2028

The core of the determination is a platform duty. Under operative part 4(e)(bb) the hydrogen network operators allocate entry and exit capacity at any point over a common capacity booking platform from 01.01.2028; they may run the platform themselves or have an agreed third party run it. Under the consultation draft, allocation over the platform would have started on 01.10.2026. SEFE and EnBW argued that this was too early, because several processes have to be built in parallel after the decision and hydrogen should be booked on a calendar-year basis; the ruling chamber found the objections convincing and set the start on the day the whole determination applies (paras. 125 and 126). Until then, the contracting parties may book outside the platform, bilaterally or in other ways (para. 120). No product brand like PRISMA in gas appears in the decision; the platform is to be reachable through the data hub, the central data exchange platform under WasABi.

Technically the platform must handle two methods: allocation in the order of requests, first-come-first-served (FCFS), and auction. FCFS is the rule at every entry and exit point (operative part 4(e)(ff)). Auctions apply only at border points and at points from and into hydrogen storage, and only once a booked-out threshold is reached. Operators may set that threshold with their own methodology by 01.01.2028; if they do not, it is a booking level of at least 80 percent of the bookable firm capacity at the point. Once it is reached, they switch all terms at that point to auction within one month. Entry points from hydrogen terminals, still covered in the draft, are exempt from the switch (paras. 146 to 151). For bookers at industrial sites and power plants, capacity therefore goes by the time of a complete request rather than by price, and an early request is an advantage.

Two further duties are meant to stop early annual bookings from closing the network to later bookers. At least 10 percent of the technical capacity per point is withheld and marketed only as monthly and daily products, except at exit points to final customers and entry points from production plants (operative part 4(c)). And 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, which the operators must offer as a one-stop shop through a single central registration page, so that a booker registers once rather than separately with every operator (operative part 2(d)). Getting registered and contracted early is the part most easily underestimated, because it gates everything that follows.

Then comes the booking itself, bilaterally until the platform starts and on the common platform from 01.01.2028, as a rule by FCFS; an auction applies only at border and storage points that are largely booked out. 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 fully connected 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 01.01.2028 is an operational date, not a regulatory footnote. Anyone who will need capacity should still prepare now: contracts concluded bilaterally before then remain in place, and the operators only have to bring them into line with the new rules by 01.01.2028 (operative part 8), so capacity allocated that way is no longer free when the platform starts. Registration, contracting and balancing-group setup also 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. By 01.01.2027 the operators must publish the clusters, their links and the link capacity on a joint website; that overview is the reference to lay your demand against.
• 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 capacity 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 once the platform starts on 01.01.2028.

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