Energy, gas prices in winter "very high": the EU alarm

The winter ahead "will be challenging": "very high" energy prices are expected, warned EU Commissioner Dan Jorgensen. How difficult will the next few months be for families and businesses? How are we equipped with gas reserves? Will we need to turn to Russia again? This too, together with Stefano Besseghini, CNR researcher and President of Arera between 2018 and 2025, was discussed in the episode of Numeri, an in-depth analysis on Sky TG24, on 29 September.

To overcome the coldest months, states must be able to count on gas reserves as full as possible. At the moment, however, stocks are emptier than in previous years, even if Italy is substantially the best placed country, with reserves at 87%, just above France's 83%. Negative news comes from other states, such as Germany and the Netherlands (58%). The problem is that the European market is unique: if Berlin lacked gas, everyone would suffer.

In 2019, before the coronavirus crisis, the European average of gas reserves was 96.3%, the Italian one was 96.5% and the German one was 97.5%. In 2021, on the eve of the war in Ukraine, the EU average stood at 74.1%, the Italian one at 85.3% and the German one at 67.2%. The situation today in Europe is worse than in 2021: the average is 71.2%. Germany is also down (57.6%), Italy is better (86.9%).

It is possible that, as we get ever closer to winter, there will be a race against time to fill gas reserves, which will keep prices at very high figures. In February 2026, before the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran, gas cost 32 euros per megawatt hour. Now it is more than double: in September it reached 73 euros per megawatt hour. It is expected that in the coming months the cost will always be more or less the same, also bringing with it that of electricity.

It must be said that we are still far from the peaks of 2022, when Russia's aggression against Ukraine sent the energy markets into a tailspin.

Europe's plan, in response to the war in Ukraine, would be to be able to definitively do without Russian liquefied gas by 2027. However, it is possible that the road is still long: already in the first half of the year, imports increased by around half, despite only amounting to 5% of the total.