The German government is looking for additional ways to save gas and fill underground gas storage (PHG), at the expense of more active use of coal power plants, DPA agency reported, citing the country’s Ministry of Economy.
“Gas consumption should be reduced further. Instead, more gas should be pumped in the PHG, otherwise there will be a lack in winter,” the agency quoted from the report.
“It is necessary to do everything you need so that in the summer and autumn, it is possible to fill in the storage facilities,” said Minister of Economics Robert Habek.
The report said that the bill on more active use of coal power plants is planned to be adopted on July 8.
Germany is going to stop using coal power plants by 2030, however, it does not plan to abandon these plans.
Earlier, two bills were adopted in Germany designed to strengthen the country’s energy security. The first implies the reduction of bureaucratic barriers for constructing terminals for the reception of liquefied gas (LNG).
The second simplifies the process of transferring energy companies to external management or even admits their nationalization as an extreme measure – this is how the former “daughter” of Gazprom Germania is now under external control.
Germany wants to become independent of the supply of Russian energy resources gradually. Oil and coal is supposed to be replaced by the end of the year, and from Russian gas, according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economy, it is planned to refuse by 2024.
Meanwhile, the government is faced with all the new difficulties on the way of abandoning Russian resources. On Tuesday, Gazprom said that he was forced to reduce gas supply by Northern Stream due to the untimely return of gas-freeing units from the repair of Siemens and the identified technical malfunctions of the engines.
Siemens, for its part, claims that it is still impossible to return the turbine to Germany from Montreal because of Canada’s sanctions against Russia.
Because of this, 40% of gas from the maximum power of the pipeline is now pumped by the Nord Stream. This jeopardizes the goal of filling LNG as much as possible to winter.
On Thursday, the chairman of Gazprom’s board Alexei Miller at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum said that there are no ways to solve the problem with the supply of repaired engines for the Northern Stream today.
The problem arose because Siemens only carries out engines at the Canada factory. The sanctions confusion led to a delay in supply because only Canada imposed sanctions against Gazprom, now Siemens cannot pick up engines repaired for Gazprom, Miller explained.