Status: 15.11.2022 2:15 p.m
Germany’s gas storage facilities are now 100 percent full – also thanks to the mild weather. But experts see no reason to give the all-clear, bottlenecks are still looming. And it’s going to be really difficult next winter.
Good news in times of the energy crisis: the filling level of the natural gas storage facilities in Germany has reached the 100 percent mark, according to data from the Federal Network Agency. “The working gas volume reported by the storage facility operators indicates the secured capacity of the storage facility. This does not always correspond to the physical possibilities, so that some storage facilities can store more gas,” explained the Federal Network Agency. This means that storage can continue even if the filling level is 100 percent.
The storage facilities are also well filled at EU level: According to the European gas storage association GIE, the filling level was 95.6 percent on Monday morning. The reason for the rapid filling of the storage tanks is not least the unusually mild weather at the moment. “Gas consumption in the 44th calendar week was below the average consumption of the last four years, also due to the temperature,” explained the Federal Network Agency. “The temperatures were 1.9 degrees warmer than in previous years.”
No all-clear yet
The situation that currently appears paradoxical is that storage facilities throughout Europe are almost full of expensive gas that has been bought in and LNG tankers are also damming up in front of the European terminals.
However, this apparent abundance does not mean the all-clear for the gas supply, but will remain a temporary phenomenon. Because the possibly permanent loss of Russian gas has created a completely new situation. Before the start of the war against Ukraine, Germany imported more than 50 percent of its natural gas requirements from the Russian Federation, which must be replaced in the long term.
Problems also in the coming winter
As the graphic for filling the gas storage tanks shows, the filling level inevitably decreases over the course of the winter. Even for this winter, the Federal Network Agency does not want to completely rule out a gas shortage. The prerequisite for this remains the savings target of at least 20 percent, feed-in from the LNG terminals at the beginning of the year and finally “that the winter-related decline in imports and the increase in the currently particularly low exports are rather moderate”.
However, experts see the supply in the coming winters as much more problematic. According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), this summer Europe is threatened with massive gas storage bottlenecks for the following winter. Without Russian gas and if China’s liquefied gas imports remain stable, almost half of the gas for a 95 percent filling of the storage facilities could be missing, according to the Paris research institute.
Further measures necessary
The German LNG terminals are only part of the solution: “Even if the first three planned floating LNG terminals are fully utilized, only about a quarter of the Russian deliveries to Germany in recent years could be replaced,” says energy economist Andreas Fischer from the German Economic Institute.
The energy crisis will remain in Europe for the foreseeable future. “The next key target for storage levels is 40 percent by February 1,” according to the Federal Network Agency. The IEA and the Federal Network Agency are demanding that politicians must react above all with measures to improve energy efficiency, expand renewable energies and build more gas storage facilities.