GAS.HU - alternative gas supply from 1 June
GAS.HU, Hungary’s first alternative household gas supplier, began gas supplies on 1 June 2008. On that day gas was first supplied to the initial 180 contracted subscribers. Following this, subscribers who have contracted with GAS.HU online since 1 February are continuously connected to the service. By the end of May 6,500 households had decided to conclude a contract with GAS.HU.
The transparency and ease of use of the GAS.HU website (www.gas.hu) guarantees that a contract can be made without any queuing and waiting, either at home or in an internet café, for the supply of gas to any place in the country, wherever consumption takes place.
With reference to annual average consumption data, concluding a contract with GAS.HU can save approximately the price of one month’s gas.
When launching the service the owners of GAS.HU were aware of the fact that for decades people have had it fixed in their minds that gas could be bought only from a single supplier. Nevertheless, they are optimistic about the future since, in their opinion, consumers have accepted that by today gas has also become a product which can be purchased from several providers.
In the case of GAS.HU, it is not only the ‘product’ which is new but also the method of how to access it. The system for concluding a contract online on www.gas.hu represents the first such opportunity in Central Europe, even though its creators are aware of the fact that at present people are still averse to concluding a contract via the internet.
GAS.HU will soon ensure the possibility of establishing a contract ‘on paper’ in the traditional manner for those who are not online.
Otherwise, a change of gas supplier does not involve any technical alterations. There is no need to change pipes or the gas meter. In a technical sense everything remains as it has been, nor does the quality of gas change.
GAS.HU, where an independent unit has been working on optimizing the procedure from the very moment of launching the service, well knows that the administrative conditions and procedure of changing gas suppliers must significantly speed up and be simplified.
EMFESZ First Natural Gas and Energy Trading and Service Provider Ltd., which operates GAS.HU, is a well-established and stable player in Hungary’s industrial gas supply. Since 2003 it has provided more than 200 significant industrial plants, local government institutions and heating plants – and through the latter more than 100,000 households – with gas. The company transports three billion cubic metres of natural gas of Central Asian origin to Hungary, thus ensuring 70 per cent of Hungary’s free market turnover of natural gas and 20 per cent of the entire Hungarian gas market.
EMFESZ, which features among the 30 largest companies in Hungary, intends to participate in the Hungarian energy market as a comprehensive energy supplier. The company is to build Europe’s largest combined cycle power plant with an output of 2400 megawatts in the village of Nyírtass, Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County.