Germany’s Greens party is no longer in power but the country’s quest for “climate neutrality” continues unabated.
To wean Germans off fossil fuels almost 20 per cent of cities plan to shut down their distribution networks for natural gas. This was revealed on October 24 by the public utilities association Verband Kommunaler Unternehmen (VKU).
According to a VKU survey publsihed on October 23, among 609 municipal utility companies 19 per cent of respondents said they would retire their gas networks in the coming years and primarily focus on providing warmth to their customers through district heating and electrical heat pumps.
Another 23 per cent said they would shut down part of the gas network and convert the remaining portion for the use of “green” gases such as hydrogen or biomethane – although these would primarily be used to supply businesses rather than households.
Some 46 per cent of municipal utility companies said they had were no definite plans yet.
VKU Chairman Ingbert Liebing said the majority of communal utilities were currently “in limbo”, including the association’s many millions of customers.
“We call on the federal government to quickly ensure legal and planning certainty for gas networks. We need clarity for an orderly phase-out of natural gas – both for the conversion to hydrogen distribution networks or for use with biomethane, as well as for decommissioning,” Liebing said.
Germany has officially adopted the goal of becoming “climate neutral” by 2045 and cutting net greenhouse gas emissions to zero. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s Chancellor since May, has said on October 21 his government remains committed to the 2045 deadline.
The roadmap towards this ambitious goal has been written into the Climate Protection Law – with abandoning natural gas use as one of the steps on the way.
Some cities are even trying to beat the official schedule deadline. In Mannheim, an industrial city of 320,000 inhabitants in Germany’s southwest, the municipal utility company MVV announced in November last year that it would shut down its gas network by 2035.
The networks shutdown decision has caused outrage among numerous residents.
Many have joined a citizens’ initiative that is trying to prevent it, arguing that not all households could switch to district heating and would have to spend a lot of money on having heat pumps installed.
