vgbe energy journal 10 (2022) - International Journal for Generation and Storage of Electricity and Heat

Future-proof, secure and climate-friendly electricity supply in Germany
24.5 billion m 3 . By comparison, Nord Stream
1 has a nominal capacity of 55 billion m 3 .
However, the creation of these capacities
alone does not ensure the supply of natural
gas from alternative sources. Rather, the
necessary quantities must be procured on
the international markets. The USA and, in
the medium term, Canada, as well as countries
in the Middle East and on the African
continent in particular, can be considered as
suppliers. Alongside the USA and Qatar,
Australia is also one of the three largest suppliers
of LNG and could also be considered
as a supplier for Germany. Russia was in
fourth place in the ranking of the largest
LNG exporters in 2021. The most important
LNG exporters in 2021 also included countries
in Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia,
Papua New Guinea and Brunei, as well as
Trinidad & Tobago and Peru in Central and
South America 25 . In total, 19 exporting
countries were counted in 2021.
The contracts for the supply of LNG are often
long-term: around 30 % are traded on a
spot basis (term of the contracts less than
four years) – the volume-weighted contract
term of the longer-term contracts was 15.3
years in 2022. In addition, Germany and
also the EU have a clear climate agenda, i.e.
a long-term secure purchase of LNG is not to
be expected. Consequently, there are more
attractive buyers for potential exporters of
LNG or the contract price for LNG must compensate
for the disadvantages for exporters
to Germany. However, the higher willingness
to pay of German LNG buyers also leads
to shortages in other places where these
prices can no longer be paid 26 .
As another important step towards improving
security of supply, the German Bundestag
had passed an amendment to the Energy
Industry Act at the end of April 2022 to
introduce fill level requirements for gas storage
facilities (“Gas Storage Act”). The Act,
which came into force on 30 April 2022, is
intended to ensure that gas storage facilities
in Germany are sufficiently filled – within
the limits of the actual gas supply – at the
beginning of winter. The market players are
primarily responsible for this. With the ministerial
decree of 29 July 2022, the filling
level requirements were increased compared
to the requirements formulated in the
Storage Act. Thus, by 1 October the storage
facilities must be filled to 85 % (instead of
80 %), by 1 November to 95 % (instead of
90 %) and by 1 February still to 40 % 27 . A
new interim target of 75 % by 1 September,
25
International Group of LNG Importers, GI-
IGNL 2022 Annual Report
26
Matthias Peer, Klaus Ehringfeld, Wolfgang
Drechsler, Europe buys gigantic quantities of
liquefied gas - “That plunges millions of people
into darkness”, Handelsblatt, 30.7.2022
27
The industry association of gas storage operators
INES estimates that gas storage tanks
filled to 100 % are sufficient for two to three
cold winter months.
which was already reached in mid-August
2022, should lead to accelerated injection.
In practice, Trading Hub Europe GmbH
(THE) – THE is operationally responsible for
the injection, withdrawal and transport of
natural gas in the German high-pressure
pipeline system – will be obliged to gradually
fill the gas storage facilities. For this purpose,
THE will receive a comprehensive set
of instruments to ensure security of supply,
especially for the winter.
In the long term, the aim is to increasingly
replace natural gas with “green” hydrogen
and, if possible, to use the infrastructure
built up for natural gas. However, Germany
will also be predominantly dependent on
imports. Here, too, the aim should be to
achieve the broadest possible diversification
of suppliers. However, since the production
of hydrogen is less dependent on natural resources
than natural gas, a wider range of
exporters can be expected.
In addition to guaranteeing a broad range of
suppliers – as far as possible from politically
stable countries – a strategy based on security
of supply includes the greatest possible
use of domestic energy sources, openness to
technology and stockpiling, as has been regulated
by law for decades in the case of oil,
for example. In the past, Germany traditionally
did not fare badly in terms of the energy
sources used to generate electricity. All internationally
common primary energy
sources were used (lignite, hard coal, oil
(although only to a small extent), gas, nuclear
energy, wind, solar, bioenergy and hydropower).
For the future, however, lignite and hard
coal, and to a lesser extent oil, can no longer
be used or can only be used to a very limited
extent for climate protection reasons, and
nuclear energy is not wanted politically. It is
therefore clear that in the medium term
natural gas will have to play an even more
central role as a back-up and supplement to
renewables. This climate-friendly bridge
can actually only be eliminated if an alternative
is created with the development of a
hydrogen infrastructure.
4 Longer-term outlook –
Security of supply in a
decarbonised electricity
system and
transformation to
hydrogen-based thermal
generation
Even though the focus in the current situation
is understandably on the coming winters
and Germany’s secure energy supply, in this
article we want to look a little further ahead,
also to analyse which long-term trends and
predictions still make sense despite, or precisely
because of, the Ukraine war.
It is clear that greenhouse gas emissions
must be greatly reduced by 2030 in order to
achieve Germany’s climate targets. Thus, a
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by
46 % by 2030 compared to 2019 (- 43 %
compared to 2021) to 438 million t CO 2
equivalents in 2030 is required. The reduction
target for the energy sector is even –
58% compared to 2019 and – 56 % compared
to 2021 to 108 million t CO 2 -equivalents
in 2030.
After the energy industry and the electricity
sector – starting from a high level – have already
made significant contributions to reducing
emissions in the past and must continue
to do so, other sectors such as transport,
industry and buildings are now coming
into focus. Only if all these sectors make
substantial contributions will Germany’s future
emissions targets be achievable. In addition
to a general reduction in energy demand
(e.g. through building insulation), it
will be important in the future to replace
carbon intense energy sources with lower
carbon intense ones.
A particularly strong effect is achieved by
replacing fossil energy sources with relatively
high CO 2 content, such as old oil and gas
heating systems or cars with high consumption,
with modern, electricity-powered applications.
Both replacing fossil heating systems
with heat pumps and using an electric
car can save up to 75 % of fossil energy consumption
compared to their fossil counterparts
due to the higher energy efficiency of
these systems. This means that, depending
on the end-user’s application, the additional
electricity demand replaces up to four times
the amount of oil, coal and gas in terms of
energy. 28
If the additionally required electricity is produced
100 % renewably, no further emissions
are produced and the effects on energy
consumption and emissions are particularly
high. Otherwise, the energy sources needed
to generate electricity and their emissions
must also be considered. However, the emissions
balance of electrification usually remains
positive, even if the additional electricity
demand cannot be met 100 % by renewables.
The additional gas quantities
required for electricity generation will
therefore dampen the savings effect in the
other sectors, but by no means overcompensate
for it.
Thus, the medium- and long-term plans for
electrification and sector coupling should
28
Energy consumption for production of batteries
etc. not considered. Example transport:
fuel consumption of combustion engine
~7.5 l/100 km or ~75 kWh/100 km vs. electricity
consumption of electric car
~20 kWh/100 km. Example heat: Efficiency
of modern gas heating with condensing technology
>90 % vs. ~350 % efficiency of modern
heat pump depending on technical conditions,
heat source and flow temperature. The
theoretical Carnot efficiency of the heat pump
process is even above 6, but is not achieved in
practice.
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