Against the background of almost full storage facilities, the Association of German Gas Storage Operators has warned against taking the crisis lightly. “Following the precautionary phase, we are now entering the winter phase. The challenges that winter has in store are greater than those of the precautionary phase, ”said the managing director of the Energy Storage Initiative (Ines), Sebastian Bleschke, on Thursday of the German Press Agency. According to the European gas storage association GIE, the German storage facilities are 99.19 percent full.
According to Bleschke, the high storage levels alone are not enough to get through the winter: “Two things are required: We have to further reduce gas consumption, especially when the temperatures are very cold. And the domestic market as a whole will have to import a lot more LNG in winter than it is at the moment.”
On the key date of November 1, all but two storage tanks in Germany were at least 95 percent full, as required by law. The largest storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, was 92.5 percent full. A smaller memory in Epe in North Rhine-Westphalia reported a value of 91.1 percent. The storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and form a buffer system for the market. They are usually well filled when the heating season begins in autumn. The filling levels then decrease until spring. In Germany there are around 25 storage operators with over 40 underground storage facilities.