BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) needs to take stronger action to improve energy efficiency, install heat pumps, deploy renewables, develop energy-saving systems, and increase gas supplies in the time of a shortfall of nearly thirty billion cubic meters of natural gas during next year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated in a report on Monday.
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said that these steps would cost one hundred euros to implement but this money will be paid back in two years in terms of saving natural gas bills.
The Agency’s report titled “How to Avoid Gas Shortages in the European Union in 2023”, was released at a presser by Birol alongside Ursula von der Leyen, the president of European Commission, in Brussels.
The report presents a number of practical actions that Europe can take to improve the progress already made this year, in redressing reliance on Russian gas supplies and filling storage tanks before winter.
The European countries imported 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia last year and this dropped to about sixty billion cubic meters in 2022 after Europe started to reduce reliance on Russian gas.
The Agency warned that the next year could be an even more tough test for the continent as Russian gas supplies could fall further, global supplies of LNG will be tight and the unreasonably mild temperatures witnessed at the outset of the winter are not guaranteed to last.
EU managed to dodge Russia’s energy blackmail: Von der Leyen
Von der Leyen said that the European Union has managed to face Russia’s energy blackmail through its REP ower EU plan. Under the plan, Europe decreased Russian gas demand by two-thirds before the end of the year by mobilizing up to 300 billion euros of investments.
However, the report warned that despite all the efforts and progress, the gap between supply and demand of the EU’s potential gas could reach thirty billion cubic meters in next year as Chinese LNG imports could rebound to 2021 levels and Russian deliveries could drop to zero.
Leyen said that the EU was focusing on preparations for 2023 and next winter by further consolidating its struggle in several fields, from speeding up renewables and reducing demand to international outreach and joint purchasing of gas. –APP/AA
