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Natural gas savings in Germany during the 2022 energy crisis

Nature Energy volume 8, pages 621–628 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Russia curbed its natural gas supply to Europe in 2021 and 2022, creating a grave energy crisis. This Article empirically estimates the crisis response of natural gas consumers in Germany—for decades, the largest export market for Russian gas. Using a multiple regression model, we estimate the response of small consumers, industry and power stations separately, controlling for the nonlinear temperature-heating relationship, seasonality and trends. We find significant and substantial gas savings for all consumer groups, but with differences in timing and size. For instance, industry started reducing consumption as early as September 2021, while small consumers saved substantially only since March 2022. Across all sectors, gas consumption during the second half of 2022 was 23% below the temperature-adjusted baseline. We discuss the drivers behind these savings and draw conclusions on their role in coping with the crisis.

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Fig. 1: Prices of natural gas at the European wholesale and at the German retail market.
Fig. 2: Estimated monthly crisis response of natural gas consumption.
Fig. 3: Observed versus estimated baseline consumption of natural gas.
Fig. 4: Daily demand factors for small consumers in Germany.
Fig. 5: Crisis response and price changes.

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Data availability

The original data used in this study are publicly available. The compiled dataset is published on Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7782052.

Code availability

The code is published under an open license on GitHub at https://github.com/oruhnau/gas_savings.

Change history

  • 22 May 2023

    In the version of this article initially published, the traces on the far right-hand side of Figure 1 were slightly truncated and have now been updated in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge research assistance by N. Casas. This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research via the ARIADNE Project (FKZ 03SFK5K0).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hertie School, Centre for Sustainability, Berlin, Germany

    Oliver Ruhnau, Clemens Stiewe, Jarusch Muessel & Lion Hirth

  2. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany

    Jarusch Muessel

  3. Neon Neue Energieökonomik GmbH, Berlin, Germany

    Lion Hirth

Authors
  1. Oliver Ruhnau
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  2. Clemens Stiewe
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  3. Jarusch Muessel
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  4. Lion Hirth
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Contributions

O.R.: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing–original draft, visualization, data curation, project administration. C.S.: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing–original draft, visualization, data curation. J.M.: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing–original draft, visualization, data curation. L.H.: conceptualization, writing–original draft, supervision.

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Correspondence to Oliver Ruhnau.

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Nature Energy thanks Anna Alberini, Michael G. Pollitt, Arthur Thomas for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Tables 1 and 2, Notes 1–5 and References.

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Ruhnau, O., Stiewe, C., Muessel, J. et al. Natural gas savings in Germany during the 2022 energy crisis. Nat Energy 8, 621–628 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01260-5

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