Federal government decides on strategic gas reserve – financing via levy

The federal government wants to strengthen crisis preparedness in Germany with a strategic gas reserve and finance this through a surcharge for consumers. The Federal Cabinet passed a corresponding bill at its meeting in Berlin on Wednesday.

The aim is to maintain “additional physical quantities of gas that can only be used in the event of an emergency” in order to “ensure the gas supply in a crisis situation,” as the Federal Ministry of Economics announced. This increases the resilience of the German gas system.

The reserve should therefore have a volume of 24 terawatt hours and should be built up as quickly as possible. Gas purchasing and transport as well as the storage capacity should initially be financed with a KfW loan - but in the end, according to the ministry, end customers or consumers pay a levy for the reserve.

The ministry explained that the gas price for a private household is currently on average eleven to twelve cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). As a result of the planned levy, “according to current estimates based on current gas consumption, the costs for one kilowatt hour of gas would increase by 0.03 cents/kWh to 0.05 cents/kWh”. For a single-family home with an annual consumption of 20,000 kWh, this would be a cost increase of less than ten euros per year.

However, this does not mean that companies are “released from their responsibility,” emphasized the ministry. The “market players” “continue to be responsible for winter precautions and the fulfillment of their delivery obligations and consumption quantities – even in a very cold winter.”

According to the ministry, the federal government also wants to “examine options for targeted relief for particularly energy-intensive companies and approach the European Commission about this,” the ministry further announced. The government also wants to take further measures to prevent crises.