In view of the looming gas bottleneck in Austria, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) convened the government’s small crisis cabinet on Sunday evening. Result: The Mellach power station in Styria is being converted so that, in the event of an emergency, electricity and heat can be generated again from coal instead of natural gas. This was agreed with the energy company Verbund, the Federal Chancellery announced.
The coal-fired power station south of Graz was the last of its kind in Austria. An era came to an end in April 2020 when the last coal was burned. The plant was then converted to natural gas to generate electricity in an emergency. Now there is a command back, so to speak, the power plant is again being converted to coal.
This requires a certain lead time, according to the APA request from the Ministry of Climate Protection. It will probably take months before the technical and personnel requirements are in place and the coal is purchased. In any case, they will be ready on site: “The power plant is still state-of-the-art today,” a site manager told “Krone” in the spring of 2020.
Less gas delivered
OMV reported on Sunday morning that, as in previous days, about half the gas was delivered to Austria than usual. Demand for gas is currently quite low, but missing quantities can easily be replaced by purchases, explains OMV. The gas supply has been secured, the storage facilities in Austria are already 64 percent full.
In total, Austria has a storage capacity of about 95 terawatt hours, which corresponds approximately to a need all year round. This is one of the highest storage capacities in the EU. Currently (from 15 June) hat Austria stores about 39 percent of its annual consumption in gas storage facilities, according to the government in a statement. This puts you in second place in stockpiling in the European Union.
In the summer months, the gas requirement in Austria is around 4 to 6 terawatt hours, in the winter months 10 to 12 terawatt hours. The aim is to have the storage tanks 80 percent full by November 1, 2022. Gas with an energy content of more than 38 TWh is currently stored in the gas storage facilities on Austrian territory – without the storage of Haidach, which is only connected to the German gas network, that is more than 33 TWh.
“Save as planned”
“Storage has been going according to plan so far, now it is a matter of replacing the cut of Russian gas with other sources or suppliers in order to continue to build up stocks,” Chancellor Nehammer said after Sunday’s crisis summit.
Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) emphasized the aim of ensuring supplies to the domestic economy and private households. According to Gewessler, work is underway to “step by step become less dependent on Russian gas”.
Source: Krone
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