Germany’s ‘Tense’ Gas Situation May Become ‘Very Serious’ If People Continue Using Too Much, Authorities Warn

Steam leaves a cooling tower of the Lichterfelde gas-fired power plant in Berlin on March 30, 2022. Michael Sohn/AP Photo

Germany’s gas situation may become “very serious” if the country does not significantly reduce consumption ahead of winter, the head of Germany’s national network regulator warned Thursday.

Federal Network Agency President Klaus Mueller wrote on Twitter that gas consumption in Germany “increased by too much last week,” with German households and small businesses using nearly 10 percent more gas than the average consumption from 2018 to 2021.

According to official data, average household and small business power consumption across Germany for the week of Sept. 26 was 618 gigawatt hours per day (GWh/day), 10 percent higher when compared with the average for the same week over the years 2018 through 2021, during which it was 564 GWh/day.

Industrial consumption was also up 2 percent (1,370 gigawatts), Mueller said.

“We will struggle to avoid a gas emergency in winter without at least 20 percent savings in the private, commercial and industrial sectors,” Mueller said. “The situation can become very serious if we do not significantly reduce our gas consumption.”

Overall, households and small businesses account for roughly 40 percent of German gas consumption, while large manufacturing industries account for the other 60 percent.

Along with the dire warning that Germans “absolutely have to consume less,” Mueller noted that liquefied natural gas imports, gas supplies from Germany’s neighboring countries of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Norway, along with full storage could help the country get through the winter.

Gas storage sites are more than 92 percent full, Germany’s regulator said on Thursday. However, the agency, which has the power to impose rationing in case of severe shortages, warned that the situation is tense and a “further deterioration of the situation cannot be ruled out,” pointing to volatile fluctuations in gas prices. 

Pipes of the gas storage plant Reckrod are pictured near Eiterfeld, central Germany, July 14, 2022, after the Nord Stream 1 pipeline was shut down for maintenance. The Canadian Press/AP/Michael Probst

‘Next Winter May Also Be Very Difficult’

The warning comes as Germany is currently in phase two of a three-stage emergency plan aimed at safeguarding against shortages amid a reduction in gas flows from Russia, which was previously its main gas supplier.

In 2021, Russian gas accounted for about 55 percent of Germany’s total consumption, but in August, just 9.5 percent of that consumption came from Russia, according to the BDEW German power industry association.

The final stage of Germany’s three-stage emergency plan would involve rationing gas supplies throughout the country, but this hasn’t yet been triggered.

Constant warnings from German officials over potentially limited energy supplies this winter have prompted a surge in sales of electric heaters among households, with data from market research company Growth from Knowledge showing that sales of heaters between January and August jumped 76 percent compared to the year-earlier period.

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the executive director of the International Energy Agency noted that Europe’s gas storage for this winter was nearly full, meaning the EU could pull through the winter with a few “bruises” so long as there were no political or technical shocks.

“Where we are is not bad and I expect if there are no surprises—political and technical surprises—and if the winter … is a normal winter, Europe can go through this winter with some bruises here and there, but we can come to February and March,” Fatih Birol said, CNBC reported.

However, he warned that next winter could be even more of a challenge if Chinese gas imports increase.

“What helped us this time, [is that] we still imported some gas from Russia in the last few months,” he said. Additionally, China had imported ”less gas than it would have otherwise“ owing to what Birol called ”very sluggish economic performance.”

“Next year, if Chinese gas imports increase with the Chinese economy coming back, it will be [a] rather difficult few months starting from March to next winter. So this winter is difficult, but next winter may also be very difficult as well,” he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.