Germans urged to ration more gas
German households need to cut their natural gas consumption even more than they already have done to avoid shortages, according to an energy study published on Thursday.
“Pre-crisis gas consumption needs to come down by 30%”, Der Spiegel quoted Gunnar Luderer from the Ariadne project at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who released the research.
Such a level of saving would help Germany avoid gas shortages and supply interruptions, Der Spiegel writes.
According to the research, people need to adapt their heating behavior, for example by lowering the room temperature and intelligent control, which would help save 30% of gas used in the housing sector by next year. Private households, commercial trade and services are the largest consumers of natural gas in Germany and mainly use it for heating and hot water, but, as the report points out, they have managed to only slightly reduce consumption.
Over the summer the use of gas decreased by 23% compared to the five-year average, but official preliminary data for September varies from a decrease of 19% compared to the five-year average, to an increase of 16%, the report explains.
The research also laments “the massive increase” in gas prices, saying that in August gas was more than ten times more expensive than the long-term average before the current energy crisis.
Russia's share of natural gas imports to Germany was around 50% in recent years. The interruption of supplies from Russia, the shutdowns of many nuclear power plants in France, and logistics problems with coal due to the summer drought were named among the reasons for a spike in the wholesale price of electricity.
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