Germany is entering a dark winter with too much natural gas consumption and may be unable to avoid an energy "emergency" in the months ahead, the head of the country's network regulator warned Thursday, according to WaPo.
"Gas consumption increased by too much last week," said Klaus Mueller, head of Germany's network agency.
With the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline system in the Baltic Sea and overall reduced natural gas flows from Russia amid the war in Ukraine, German households and businesses need to increase energy conservation more than ever as average temperatures across Europe's largest economy are set to slide to near 5 degrees celsius in the second half of the month.
Heating degree data shows the heating season has started.
The inability to reduce natural gas consumption will only increase the risk of drawing down supplies in storage quicker and could spark a continued surge in natural gas prices. natural gas consumption last week for households and small businesses was 10% higher than average consumption levels between 2018-21.
"We will hardly be able to avoid a gas emergency in winter without at least 20% savings in the private, commercial and industrial sectors.
"The situation can become very serious if we do not significantly reduce our gas consumption," Mueller said.
There's some good news. natural gas continues to be injected into storage. The total storage level in Germany is about 92.75% as of Oct. 6, well above government targets for this time of year.
And, of course, there are no overall optimistic stories here, so we'll leave you with the bad news. Florence Rabier, director-general of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, told FT that forecasts for November and December in Europe would bring "colder spells and less wind and rainfall, reducing the generation of renewable power."
The Germans better fire up those coal and fossil fuel plants while increasing nuclear output to prevent widespread power blackouts during peak demand hours. As for households, the cheapest way to offset energy hyperinflation is to burn wood.
Earlier this week, UK's power regulator gave citizens a dose of reality that a "significant risk" of a natural gas shortage could materialize this winter and cause power blackouts.
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By Zerohedge.com
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And to complicate its errors Germany refused to hand over to Gazprom the repaired turbines needed for the maintenance of Nord Stream 1 because of the sanctions.
Yet, President Putin just two days ago offered to supply Germany with gas supplies from an undamaged part of the very Nord Stream 2 but Scholz didn’t respond to the Russian offer because of being scared of upsetting the United States.
Now reports are telling us that Germany may neither be able to avoid a gas emergency this winter nor descending fast into recession because of staggering energy prices and extreme shortages of intermediate products.
Germany is paying a crippling price for letting itself being led under its new Chancellor into a war provoked by the United States against Russia and also being milked by its ally for the excessive prices it is charging for its LNG supplies without even a whimper.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
The citizens of UK, and Europe are NOT to be blamed for this chaos and gas shortages. The blame lies squarely on UK and EU politicians shoulders, and they should be the one suffering consequences for such an apocalyptic blunder. The UK and EU elites by sanctioning Russia are punishing their own people, and causing destruction of European economies, while Russia diverts their oil and gas shipments to Asia. Also the U.S. terrorist act of blowing up the Nord Stream 1/2 pipelines will cause a major disruption in the long term to get the gas problems in Europe resolved. However, this was the intent as the U.S. State Dept. A. Blinken said "this is strategic opportunity for the U.S." Sure it is. Now Europe will be buying LNG at much higher prices, and dealing with the terrorists. How is that for virtue signaling EU politicians? Putin is bad, but the U.S. that blows up the major industrial infrastructure Nord Stream 1/2 is ....good. Really? Who really needs the reality check here? Political elites of UK and EU.