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BONN, Germany (AP) — The temperature exterior Klaus Mueller’s workplace virtually resembles spring, precisely the type of gentle climate that helped Germany get by means of the winter with out Russian pure fuel.

However Germany’s chief utility regulator shouldn’t be able to sound the all clear on an power disaster spawned by the conflict in Ukraine, even with pure fuel reserves plentiful and costs properly down from their peak.

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An excessive amount of may go incorrect — particularly if customers and firms develop weary of the conservation habits they discovered throughout a winter fraught with worry of rolling blackouts and rationing, Mueller, head of the Federal Community Company, stated in an interview Wednesday with The Related Press on the company’s headquarters in Bonn, Germany.

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Plus, there’s subsequent winter to consider.

Different dangers, corresponding to a pipeline accident or a sudden chilly snap, may set again plans to maintain pure fuel storage as full as doable as Europe learns to stay with out a budget Russian fuel that fueled its financial system for many years.

Mueller would solely concede that he’s “optimistic” this winter will finish with no additional fuel crunch, particularly after Germany reduce fuel use by 14% in 2022 by means of reducing thermostats, switching to different fuels or halting energy-intensive industrial manufacturing. Gasoline use fell 19% within the final six months throughout the entire 27-nation European Union.

“However on the identical time, we’re targeted already on winter 2023-24, and we all know that Germany, and enormous elements of Europe, should get by means of the following winter with out Russian pipeline fuel,” he stated. And “the dangers are in plain sight.”

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Whereas he’s grateful for warmer-than-usual winter climate that reduce fuel use for heating, “will subsequent winter be so gentle? Nobody can say,” Mueller stated.

“Second, we now have to see if the commercial companies and personal households are bored with the efforts associated to conservation — or will they redouble their efforts primarily based on expertise so far? We’re pushing for the second to be the case,” he stated.

Mueller says he hopes the general public responds to an method primarily based on transparency — not exaggerating danger however not sugarcoating it both. But the expertise with measures corresponding to masking and social distancing through the COVID-19 pandemic present “that at all times being informed what to do shouldn’t be particularly fashionable.”

Key for the months and years forward is a push to make use of warmth pumps as an alternative of fuel heating, nonetheless the case in roughly half of German properties. Above all, greater costs will drive owners and companies to adapt merely to decrease their prices.

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Gasoline costs have fallen to beneath 50 euros ($53) per megawatt hour — the bottom degree in practically a yr and a half — from a report 350 euros per megawatt hour in August, based on FactSet. However they’re nonetheless properly above the 18 euros per megawatt hour in March 2021, simply earlier than Russia began massing troops on Ukraine’s border.

Mueller stated it is going to take six months to a yr for decrease costs to filter by means of to cheaper utility payments for customers. Requested whether or not costs two or thrice their pre-crisis degree are the “new regular,” Mueller averted the phrase, saying there are too many uncertainties that might have an effect on fuel costs going ahead.

Mueller, previously head of the Federation of German Shopper Organisations and setting minister from the Greens get together in northern Germany’s Schleswig-Holstein area, took over the community company in March 2022, simply days after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

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Pure fuel costs had already risen on fears of misplaced provide, though Western sanctions in opposition to Moscow initially spared oil and pure fuel. There have been issues about Europe’s dependency on Russian fuel used to warmth properties, generate electrical energy and hearth up industrial processes like making glass and fertilizer.

What adopted was a scramble to seek out various pipeline provides from pleasant international locations like Norway and to line up floating terminals that may import liquefied pure fuel that comes by ship from suppliers together with the U.S. and Qatar.

Russia had already restricted provides within the run-up to the invasion, leaving storage low. Then it began slicing again provides, first to international locations that wouldn’t meet a requirement to pay in Russian foreign money. On Aug. 31, it reduce off the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany, citing technical issues.

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There’s nonetheless a little bit of Russian fuel — about 7% of provide — flowing to Europe by means of Ukraine to Slovakia and through Turkey to Bulgaria.

The race to seek out new provides was costly — 10 billion euros went towards the floating terminals, and customers are seeing painfully greater payments and inflation. However fuel storage was full by December. Drawn down over the winter, storage services should be crammed once more over the summer season.

One in every of Mueller’s first duties as regulator was overseeing the institution of a 24-hour disaster middle subsequent to his company’s skyscraper in Bonn, Germany’s capital till the 1999-2000 transfer to Berlin.

That’s the place the company would have determined which corporations would get precedence entry to power if provides failed and the federal government declared a fuel emergency. The middle, geared up with diesel mills and shares of meals so it may function even in a blackout, by no means had for use.

Requested when he realized Germany had made it by means of the winter, Mueller stated he was reassured by the complete storage ranges round Christmas. However full aid is but to return.

“When it’s actually spring right here would be the second after we may have made it,” he stated. “We’re nonetheless a few weeks away, and I’d relatively keep cautious.”