Gas utilities in Germany call for support to decommission the country's gas network

Germany's VKU association is calling for public support to finance the planned gradual decommissioning of the country's gas network. The support is intended to prevent high charges that, according to the association, would have to be paid by customers as their numbers on the existing network continue to dwindle. This was reported by the foreign news outlet Clean Energy Wire.

The ongoing transition to a climate-neutral energy system in Germany is forcing gas infrastructure operators to choose whether to gradually start dismantling the existing infrastructure or repurpose it for hydrogen transport.

The VKU association also warned that more and more customers are starting to disconnect from the gas network as they replace gas heating with heat pumps or district heating systems. As a result, the unit costs borne by the remaining customers connected to the gas network will rise.

According to the VKU association, the proposed public support scheme should compensate for the rising unit costs and prevent network charges for the remaining customers from increasing excessively.

“The state is using public money to fund the development of the new (energy) world, but decommissioning the old (energy) world will also cost something,” said VKU director Ingbert Liebing.

The foreign news outlet Clean Energy Wire recalled that Germany's Ministry for Economic Affairs presented measures at the start of this year to manage the transformation of the country's gas network, which is currently around 500 thousand kilometres long. The gas is used primarily by households for heating and hot water, as well as by larger industrial customers in their production processes. In these processes, natural gas will often be replaceable only with hydrogen or other “clean” gases.