German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) expects that Germany’s gas supply will also be assured in the winter of 2023/24. “We can assume that, like this year, if nothing unforeseen happens,” said the politician. Before the winter of 2022/23, Scholz had repeatedly assured that there would probably be no shortage.
Scholz, together with Minister of Economic Affairs Robert Habeck (Greens) and Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP), will open the first floating terminal for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Wilhelmshaven, Lower Saxony, on Saturday. Others are being built in Brunsbüttel (Schleswig-Holstein), Stade (Lower Saxony) and Lubmin (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). Plans for a smaller terminal in Hamburg were shelved on Friday.
Floating terminals for liquefied natural gas should fill the gap
They are intended to help close the gas supply gap created by the extensive shutdown of Russian gas supplies to Germany. Before Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Germany obtained about 55 percent of its gas from Russia. In Austria it was even 80 percent.
Baerbock emphasizes the importance of back-up power stations
German Foreign Minister Baerbock (Greens) stressed the importance of back-up power stations to secure the energy supply against outside attacks. On Friday afternoon, she and Klaus Müller, the chairman of the Federal Network Agency, visited Thyrow’s gas turbine power plant in Brandenburg, south of Berlin. It is considered systemically important and serves as a backup power plant that can intervene quickly in the event of a widespread blackout.
“We are currently experiencing in Ukraine that critical infrastructure, that energy infrastructure, can become a target,” Baerbock said. The security of Germany is also being threatened from the outside, and with it the electricity grids. Reserve power stations such as the two gas turbine power stations of the energy company Leag in Brandenburg could therefore become more important to make the energy supply resilient to attacks from outside.
Source: Krone
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