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Gas meter: better walk slowly
Photo: Christoph Hardt / Future Image / IMAGO
Germany continues to save gas.
In the past week, gas consumption was 18.2 percent below the average consumption for the years 2018 to 2021. This is reported by the Federal Network Agency.
The slightly higher average temperatures may also have helped: They were 1.1 degrees above the average of the four reference years.
Industry consumed 20 percent less, households and businesses 16 percent less.
Authority President Klaus Müller described the decline as "relevant".
"Every saving is easy on the wallet, helps the climate and supports the filling of gas storage tanks for the winter of 23/24," he commented on the latest figures in a tweet.
In January he had complained that his savings were still too low.
As is usual in winter, the levels in German gas storage facilities are currently falling.
According to preliminary data, the total filling level on Wednesday morning was 69.5 percent.
That was almost 0.6 percentage points less than the day before, according to data from the European gas storage association GIE.
For comparison: a year earlier the fill level was 28.6 percent.
The largest German storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, was 84.6 percent full on Tuesday.
Across the EU, the fill level was around 61.1 percent.
That was 0.5 percentage points less than the day before.
Gas from Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France
The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a buffer system for the market.
On the morning of November 14, a fill level of 100 percent was recorded.
It should be noted that in addition to gas extraction from the storage facilities, gas continues to flow to Germany through pipeline imports.
According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany received natural gas from Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and France on Tuesday.
Gas now also flows into the German transmission network via new LNG terminals on the German coast.
On February 1, the German natural gas storage facilities were 78.6 percent full, almost twice as full as required by the Energy Industry Act on this date.
In this respect, no observer expects a gas shortage in the current winter.
Nevertheless, Netzagentur boss Müller continues to push for savings, since it could probably be a feat of strength to fill the storage well for next winter.
There is also concern that consumption may pick up again in the near future.
At the end of January, for example, Veronika Grimm warned of gas shortages.
It is "imaginable" that, due to the fall in wholesale prices, industry in particular will consume significantly more gas again - and "that would be associated with dangers in the current situation," Grimm told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung".
»Up until the coming winter, the top priority must be to maintain a buffer in order to be able to react to a tighter supply situation.
Under certain circumstances, the federal government must also set incentives so that gas savings continue.«
mamk/dpa-AFX