energy
Municipal utilities: Relieve gas customers from the costs of dismantling networks
Germany should become climate neutral by 2045. What is happening to the existing gas networks, what consequences does this have for customers? The public utilities association VKU warns against confusing rules.
From the perspective of the VKU municipal utilities association, gas customers should not be overwhelmed when networks are shut down. “The closer we get to 2045 with the end of natural gas supplies, the greater the risk of a patchwork quilt and considerable uncertainty among consumers,” said VKU Managing Director Ingbert Liebing. “The federal government can prevent this by setting up clear rules for an orderly exit from natural gas.” Specifically, the VKU is demanding a “conversion bonus”.
This was intended to support the ownership of a house or the ownership of an apartment building if the house is disconnected from the gas network. The VKU also suggests that the state should use a “compensation account” to compensate the network operators for part of the costs that shutdowns and shortened depreciation periods cause and therefore have to be passed on to customers via network fees. Gas customers should be spared the very high costs of dismantling.
According to a VKU survey, almost every fifth municipal utility in Germany wants to shut down its gas network according to current plans. Instead, these municipal utilities want to rely on district heating and heat pumps. For 46 percent of municipal utilities and municipal energy suppliers, it is not yet clear what will happen to their gas network. 23 percent are planning a mixture of decommissioning and conversion to green gases such as hydrogen or biomethane – but more for medium-sized companies. However, hydrogen is currently still very expensive and is not sufficiently available.
The announcement that the gas network would be shut down caused a stir in Mannheim, for example. The energy supplier MVV announced in November that it intended to switch off its gas network by 2035. A citizens’ initiative is fighting against it. Not all households have the opportunity to switch to district heating. Instead, they would have to have an expensive heat pump installed.
On the way to more climate protection
Germany wants to become climate neutral by 2045 and heat with district heating, heat pumps or green gases instead of oil and natural gas. According to VKU, municipal utilities and municipal energy suppliers must now check which lines of their gas network they convert to green gases and which they shut down. According to the VKU, there are currently no clear legal regulations for decommissioning and dismantling. The majority of municipal utilities and with them many citizens as well as mostly medium-sized industrial and commercial customers were currently in limbo.
Municipal heat planning also plays an important role. Homeowners should then be able to decide what they want to do – for example, whether they want to connect to a heating network or install a heat pump or another more climate-friendly heating system if a new heating system is needed. The municipal heat planning should be available in municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants from mid-2026 and for the remaining municipalities from mid-2028.
dpa
Source: Stern
