Abstract

The following report documents a study conducted by the Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT) on behalf of the Berlin gas supplier GASAG, which focused on determining the company's location and future orientation against the background of the energy policy requirements of the state of Berlin. The new framework conditions, primarily the emerging liberalisation regulation of the energy markets in the EU and the specific challenges of a company operating in both halves of the city, which is determinedly developing from a pure gas supplier to a service provider, played a major role here. The study took place in the period 1997 to 1998. In an iterative process, the client and the contractor first outlined the challenges, problems and general development perspectives relevant to the company. Subsequently, the necessary steps towards an economically sound and ecologically oriented future were developed in the form of recommendations for action and fed back to the client with regard to their feasibility and necessity. The report naturally contains a number of time-related statements, for example on GASAG's unexploited potential for action as a service provider. The fact that these may already be considerably different today - at the end of 1999 - is due to the enormous dynamics in the entire energy sector. We have deliberately refrained from updating the report because it remains meaningful as a time- and problem-related document. The transformation process from energy supplier to energy service provider has only just begun. WerkstattBericht No. 40 deals primarily with the ecological aspects of increased gas use up to the year 2010 and GASAG's contribution to the realisation of the Berlin energy concept. WerkstattBericht No. 39 contains Parts I to III of the study, which focus on the energy policy framework and the company's development prospects.

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