Third of imports from Russia
Eon sees potential for gas savings in households
5/7/2022 7:04 am
After Russia’s attack on Ukraine, new natural gas suppliers are being feverishly sought in this country. The dependency can be reduced, but it is still enormous. The energy supplier Eon is now calculating how German households could save a third of the gas volume currently purchased from Russia.
According to a calculation by the energy company Eon, households in Germany could make a “significant contribution” to greater independence from gas imports from Russia. Eon assumed for the calculation that ten percent of residential buildings in Germany with photovoltaic systems and 20 percent of private gas heating will be replaced by heat pumps. If the room temperature were then reduced by an average of one degree Celsius in all other apartments and houses with gas heating, this would result in savings of a total of 103 terawatt hours of natural gas per year, Eon announced in Munich.
This corresponds to almost a third of the amount of gas that Germany is currently importing from Russia. For comparison: the total gas consumption in Germany in 2021 was a good 1000 terawatt hours. Because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the federal government is working to reduce dependence on energy supplies from Russia.
Until recently, Germany still got 55 percent of its annual requirement of around 90 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia. In the meantime, the share has been reduced to 35 percent, said Economics Minister Robert Habeck from the Greens recently when signing a lease agreement for four floating liquid gas terminals in Wilhelmshaven.
Eon admitted that the outlined switch to heat pumps and photovoltaics was a “strength over a longer period of time”. However, the climate would also benefit from the measures because more than 18 million tons of CO2 would be saved each year.