Natural gas: In which industries does the “cutter” enter first

Industries that are able to operate with alternative fuel are the ones that will be the first to be called upon to reduce natural gas consumption in the event that the mandatory 15% reduction measure is activated, as provided by the European Regulation for dealing with supply disruption situations.

At the opposite end are industries connected to the sectors of public health, security, defense and the environment, as reported by Kathimerini.

This category of businesses will be the last to be asked to apply the mandatory “cutter” measure based on the prioritization of a total of eight groups from the RAE of the total of 104 industries that requested an exemption from the mandatory 15% “cutter”.

Low in the hierarchy (in the 7th group) are the industries in which the reduction of consumption would cause serious damages for their re-operation.

The categorization of the industries was approved yesterday by the Plenary of RAE and the eight lists are expected to be made public next Monday.

However, the chances of activating the measure in the current winter season are extremely limited, as the mild winter has limited consumption and keeps natural gas stocks high in European warehouses.

Having already passed the fifth month of the critical period for the implementation of the measure, Greece appears to have exceeded the 15% target.

In the first five months of the eight-month period, natural gas consumption in the domestic market, according to Green Tank data, decreased by 30.8% compared to the 2021 period.

Also, the cumulative consumption of the five months August – December was 4.55 TWH lower than the average of the same five months of the five years (2017-2021) and resulted mainly from the drastic limitation of the use of gas in industry (-2.2 TWH ), which turned to alternative fuels due to high prices and to electricity generation (-1.6 TWH).

In relation to the corresponding five months of 2021, the demand from the high voltage industry fell by 59.7%, from medium voltage businesses and households by 31.9%, while a decrease is also observed in the use of natural gas in the five months of August – December 2022 at a rate of 27.6%.

Compared to the five-year period, high voltage industries reduced natural gas consumption by 71.1%, medium voltage and households by 18.2% and electricity generation by 9.8%.

On a year-on-year basis, in 2022 natural gas demand decreased by 17% compared to 2021, while a significant redistribution of shares was observed.

In particular, the share of power generation reached 73.5% from 68.7% in 2021, in the distribution network (medium enterprises and households) to 21.5% from 18.8% and in high voltage industry to the very low 5% from 12.6% in 2021.

This redistribution was mainly due to a very large reduction in the use of fossil gas by industry combined with an overall reduction in consumption, thus boosting the share of electricity generation.

Increased by 1% is the share of natural gas in the electricity generation mix in 2022, which was 43% compared to 42% in 2021.

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