Head of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, warned the coming winter of the gas bottleneck. He is already prophesying that in the coming heating season we will hear about many terrible individual fates of people who can no longer pay their bills due to the high gas prices. He also predicts a new north-south divide in Germany.
Müller appealed to people to use the summer to prepare for the heating season, which begins in three months. For example, every second gas boiler in Germany is incorrectly set and thus works inefficiently and is harmful to the climate.
Müller sharply criticized the German energy policy of recent years. It is "difficult to understand".
Gas storage was "cheerfully" sold to Russian owners and made "extremely" dependent on Nord Stream 1. In this context, he does not want to talk about Nord Stream 2 and the lack of liquid gas terminals. The fact that gas-fired power plants now have to be replaced by coal-fired power plants is not good in terms of climate policy, but there is no alternative. Despite greatly reduced deliveries from Russia, Germany's gas storage facilities have recently become somewhat full again. As the website of Europe's gas infrastructure operator (GIE) revealed on Monday evening, the storage facilities were 60.26 percent full. Given the current developments, that is not good enough.
The federal government's goal is to fill the storage tanks by at least 90 percent by the beginning of November. It is questionable whether this will succeed in view of the restricted deliveries and the threat of a complete stop to gas from Russia.
Gas storage compensates for fluctuations in gas consumption. However, even if the gas storage tanks were completely filled, their quantities would by no means be sufficient for the entire heating period.
According to estimates, the gas storage would only last two and a half months in an average winter to cover demand even without Russian gas. Germany is therefore desperately looking for other import options. The government has chartered four floating LNG terminals. Müller expects that two of the four terminals can be landed on the North Sea coast this winter. Work is currently being done to ensure that these terminals can be connected to the German gas network at “Tesla speed”.
Müller expects that there will be a new north-south divide in Germany in the future. In the future, gas will come from Norway via Holland and Belgium. Müller said that he is currently having many "tense" discussions with politicians and industrial companies from Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Bavaria and Saxony. “Because gas is a raw material that flows. It is not available everywhere at all times,” explained Müller.
This is nothing less than a "fundamental reversal" of the flow of raw materials in Germany, which will lead to very intensive debates. Something is changing for some, including those who “have been very splayed and self-confident in recent years because they lived in a very favorable geographical location”.
Müller also announced that the Federal Network Agency wants to let as much market rule as possible. The industry still knows best where it uses gas or not.
