Bundesnetzagentur President Klaus Müller expects the price fluctuations for natural gas to end. “Gas is currently costing as much as it did in December 2021,” he told the “Bild am Sonntag”. This is particularly the case because Europe has filled up its gas storage facilities and thus removed the basis for “possible speculation”.
“There is much to suggest that we have reached a price plateau that we can count on for the next one to two years.” pipelines.
There is no threat of gas shortage until spring
For this winter, the danger of a gas shortage has probably been overcome: He doesn’t expect “that anything else will go wrong this winter”. The gas storage tanks would probably still be more than 50 percent full at the end of the winter Winter.”
Since Christmas, the Federal Network Agency has become increasingly optimistic. A storage level of currently more than 90 percent is rare for January.
According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany consumed 14 percent less gas in 2022 than in 2021. “This is a great joint achievement by everyone who used gas sparingly,” said Müller. But it also helped that we sent a third less gas to our neighbors and received constant gas supplies from Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
Nevertheless, one should not let up in saving, for example when heating or showering. “That would not only be very expensive, but also lacking in solidarity,” said Müller. “In the end, increasing gas consumption also leads to higher gas prices for the energy-intensive industry, which can finally work on making up ground again after the price explosions in the summer. In addition, for every kilowatt hour that we save now, we no longer have to buy expensively in summer to refill the gas storage tanks.”
