Energy: Ministry of Economic Affairs wants to finance gas reserves through a levy

Berlin. The Federal Ministry of Economics is sticking to financing the planned national gas reserve as crisis prevention through a levy. This emerges from a draft bill available to the Reuters news agency on Tuesday. Despite previous criticism from the Union and SPD coalition factions, the ministry is taking up the financing approach that was already pursued in the summer.

Economics Minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) had in the meantime also brought funding from the federal budget or a mixed model into play. The draft puts the costs in the first ten years at 247 to 308 million euros annually.

There was initially no comment from the ministry on the status of legislative preparations. According to the draft, the aim of the reserve is to reserve additional quantities of gas for extreme cases such as sabotage or the failure of important infrastructure. The draft specifies a target volume of 24 terawatt hours. This should cover the failure of Germany's largest gas import infrastructure for 30 days.

The use of the reserve could prevent industrial customers from being switched off or the expropriation of private gas stocks having to be ordered. The gas reserve may only be used after the emergency level has been declared by the Federal Network Agency, which then decides on its use.

In the draft, the additional costs resulting from the levy are estimated at 3.77 to 7.20 euros per year for typical households. For a household in a single-family home with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours it would be 5.80 to 7.20 euros. This corresponds to a levy of 0.03 to 0.04 cents per kilowatt hour.

The planned gas reserve is intended to replace the previous, legally required filling level specifications for gas storage facilities. This regulation, introduced during the 2022 energy crisis after the loss of Russian supplies, expires on March 31, 2027. A report commissioned by the ministry came to the conclusion that the filling level requirements tend to hinder efficient, purely market-based winter precautions. The first allocation period for the new reserve is scheduled to begin on October 1, 2027.

The Greens welcomed the project and the financing method. “Pay-as-you-go financing is the right thing to do,” its energy policy spokesman Michael Kellner told Reuters. “It’s good that there’s movement now. However, the reserve for this year comes too late.”