That the summer has only just begun and the gas storage facilities are already 80 percent full is good news; the same level was not reached until September last year. 'Things are going well,' agrees energy analyst Hans van Cleef of consultancy Publieke Zaken. That the storages are already almost full (by the end of October, Brussels must reach a level of 90 percent, which now seems a formality) is due in part to the mild winter and hefty savings in energy consumption.
The filling itself is not accelerating: because the stores were still well filled last spring, the target number was reached earlier. If the winter had not been so mild, we would have been quite nervous again by now, the energy analyst thinks. 'Indeed, I think we should still be nervous. Because there are still a lot of uncertainties.'
Rising prices again
Even with fully filled storage facilities, a lot of natural gas will have to be imported next winter to get through the cold period unscathed. All eyes are on liquefied natural gas (lng), for which the Netherlands and Europe are competing with Asian countries. 'If it becomes a cold winter, here or there, or even worse: in both areas, the gas market may still prove to be tight,' Van Cleef said. This may mean rising prices again and higher energy bills for households and industry.
Moreover, after a harsh winter, the storages will be much emptier, making it more difficult to fill them for the winter of 2024 and 2025. So although the situation looks favorable, Europe, like last year, is partly dependent on the weather for its energy supply.
The International Energy Agency IEA, which declared last May that the worst gas crisis is now behind us, sees similar risks for the coming years.
Sustainability helps
In addition to savings, relief comes from the growth of renewable energy. The more green power is produced, the less the gas power plants have to run. In the Netherlands last month, thanks to sunny weather and growth in the number of solar panels, nearly a third more solar power was produced than a year earlier, according to the website Energieopwek.nl. The growth of renewable is just not going fast enough to compensate for the loss of Russian gas, the IEA warns.
Growing demand for gas in Asia and the Middle East could put pressure on prices in Europe. The Chinese economy, which was still at a low ebb last winter because of corona aftershocks, appears to be recovering. "As a result, gas consumption is rising and the supply of lng for Europe is not necessarily secure," Van Cleef said. Europe was able to buy a lot of lng last year because it paid heavily for the liquid gas and China resold some of its lng to European customers.
Europe also remains dependent on Norwegian gas and American lng. But an unhindered supply of lng from the United States is not certain either, the analyst said, because legislation is being worked on there that would make it possible to limit exports if US gas prices rise too much. As far as Van Cleef is concerned, therefore, the crisis is far from over. 'It will remain exciting in the coming years as well.'
Gas shortages 'exported'
Are the same price spikes that Dutch energy users faced last year looming? Our country has a good gas infrastructure and import capacity. 'And we are wealthy. This allows us to export any physical shortages to poor countries, exactly as we did last year.'
In other words, because European countries could afford to pay the top price for lng, we were able to buy liquefied gas that was initially destined for other countries. "So that was at the expense of people in countries like Pakistan.
©De Volkskrant
