EU exceeded the plan for the refusal of gas

The European Union even surpassed its own plans to reduce gas consumption. In connection with the abandonment of Russian gas in 2022, the European authorities set an ambitious goal - to reduce consumption by 15% on average in the territory of a political association. However, the EU managed not only to fulfill, but also to overfulfill this plan, reducing consumption by 17.7%, writes Financial Times with reference to the Eurostat data.

The publication notes that, despite the desire of some experts to link the reduction in consumption with warm winter in Europe, the real reason for reduction is the transition to alternative energy sources, and, as a rule, environmentally friendly. A significant part of the reduction has been saved by energy and increase energy efficiency from enterprises, business and households.

“The matter is not only in the weather. Energy -intensive enterprises reduced production, households saved energy, there was a transition to other sources of fuel, ”explains Holger Schmiding, chief economist of the German investment bank Berenberg.

His words are confirmed by the data of the German Federal Network Agency, according to which households and small businesses reduced gas consumption by about 17.2%, and industry is at all 18.8%. According to Eurasia Group consulting company, the transition to alternative types of fuel and energy amounted to about 60% of the total amount of gas consumption, while the rest was distributed approximately between reducing business and household consumption and, of course, soft winter.

The representative of the consulting company Hennig Golestin in a commentary noted that the trend will remain in 2023: the European Union will continue to reduce gas consumption, however, it is still not worth expecting such a dramatic decrease. According to Eurasia Group, this year the reduction will be 3-5%in the region, the main reason for the reduction will be the same - the transition to environmentally friendly energy sources as an alternative. At the same time, some measures to reduce consumption, according to Golestin, business and households may refuse.

The leaders of the reduction in gas consumption in 2022 were Finland, Lithuania and Sweden. Targets of 15% Belgium, Slovenia, Poland, Spain, Spain and Slovakia could not reach, and Malta was completely the only EU country that managed to increase gas consumption by about 14% last year. The reduction in consumption has positively affected market prices. If in August, against the backdrop of Russian supplies, prices in energy equivalent took off to € 343 per ICC, they have already fallen to € 75 per MWh in the heating season, and now they are completely traded at the level of € 40 per MWV. True, prices are still far from the usual level of € 15 MWh, which were in Europe to a full -scale Russian invasion.

Experts are still evaluating the prospects of passing the upcoming heating season, since at the beginning of April, the gas storage of Europe was filled by 55.7%, which is 20 percentage points above the average over the past five years. Some analysts and the Russian state monopolist Gazprom have repeatedly pushed that after the results of the heating season, Europe would not be able to make up for the necessary volume of gas in storage facilities, but the EU succeeded.