How long will the supplies last?
(Photo: Caro / Bastian)
Berlin The danger that Germany will run out of gas in the upcoming winter is still not over. The Federal Network Agency has calculated four different gas supply scenarios for the next few months.
Two of them would lead to a gas shortage in Germany, even if the savings targets were met. The paper with the calculations of the Federal Network Agency is available to the Handelsblatt.
The chief of the authorities, Klaus Müller, is basically optimistic about avoiding a gas shortage. It is true that heating would increase over the next few weeks. “Since gas is being saved at the same time, i.e. consumption has fallen, we are currently in a comfortable situation,” the paper says.
For its calculations, the network agency assumes that Germany will achieve the savings target of 20 percent and that three LNG terminals will go into operation by the beginning of the year at the latest. The decisive question for further development is how gas imports and exports will develop.
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Currently, 97 gigawatt hours of gas are available to German households and companies. That is the difference between the gas deliveries that come to Germany minus what is forwarded to neighboring countries. Despite the lack of Russian deliveries, Germany can currently only use four gigawatt hours less gas than in previous years.
“In the future, however, it can be assumed that both imports will decrease and exports will increase,” the network agency expects. The countries from which Germany receives gas are likely to consume more in the coming weeks due to the start of the heating season and will therefore no longer be able to continue to supply “such high” quantities to Germany.
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At the same time, demand in southern and eastern Europe will increase, which is why Germany will have to forward more gas. It is difficult to predict how much this will ultimately leave for Germany. The network agency has therefore calculated various scenarios.
Scenarios 1 and 2
The first two scenarios assume that German companies and households only have slightly less gas available. According to the calculations, instead of the current 97, only 78 gigawatt hours would remain in the country.
In this case, Germany would get through to spring without any problems, regardless of the harshness of the winter. Only the filling of the gas holders would differ slightly. In a normal winter, they would still be filled with an average of 54 percent in March. In a cold winter it would be 47 percent.
Scenarios 3 and 4
In the other two scenarios, the Federal Network Agency assumes that deliveries to Germany and forwarding to neighboring countries will change significantly more. So much so that the available gas in Germany falls from 97 to 51 gigawatt hours.
In this case, a gas shortage in Germany would be very likely, according to the network agency. In a normal winter, however, the gas would not run out until mid-April, when the heating period was over. However, if the winter were to be particularly cold, in this scenario the gas shortage would already occur at the end of February.
It is difficult to determine which scenario is more likely. The leading German economic research institutes had recently also calculated scenarios for 1,500 cases. In almost all results there was no gas deficiency.
However, this depends on many determinants, especially when it comes to imports and exports. Netzagentur President Müller makes it clear: “If there is a sharp drop in imports or an increased increase in exports”, there is also a risk of a gas shortage this winter.
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