As of November 1, all but two gas storage facilities in Germany have reached the legally required filling level of at least 95%. This emerged Wednesday night from preliminary data published on the internet by the European gas storage association GIE. Accordingly, German storage facilities were 99.19% full at 6am on Wednesday, 0.29 percentage point higher than the day before.
The biggest German storage facility in Rehden, Lower Saxony, did not meet the target, it was 92.5% full. A smaller storage facility in Epe, North Rhine-Westphalia, reported a figure of 91.1%.
“Clear rules in case of gas shortage”
Storage facilities compensate for fluctuations in gas consumption and thus form a buffer system for the market. They are usually pretty full when the heating season starts in the fall. Fill levels then decrease until spring. According to the Storage Association Initiative Energies Storage (INES), there are around 25 storage operators with more than 40 underground gas storage facilities in Germany.
“The duration of storage depends a lot on temperature,” emphasized the president of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller. “If it gets too cold in winter, the storage tanks will empty again very quickly,” Müller said at the request of the German press agency dpa on Wednesday. “That’s why it’s important that we continue to be very careful with our gas consumption and save as much as possible, even when temperatures are dropping,” he warned.
Germany was able to fill the storage facilities very quickly thanks to gas deliveries from other countries, the head of the authority continued. “Therefore, the obligation of solidarity with our European neighbors should not be questioned. There are clear legal rules that apply in the event of a gas shortage.”