The war in Ukraine is forcing people to save, but the EU is doing anything but easy to decouple electricity consumption from growth. In Austria, this works comparatively well.
Wien. This year, the climate Christkind has fulfilled a dearest wish of the long-suffering Europeans: Thanks to mild temperatures, they consumed significantly less natural gas than usual in December – which is reflected on the one hand in the increasing inventories and on the other hand causes falling prices on the commodity markets. The European reference value TTF (these are contracts traded in the Netherlands) recently fell to its lowest level since May at around 85 euros per MWh – and is therefore only slightly above the pre-war price level of January 2022. It is higher every day The freezing point increases the chances that the EU will be able to withstand Russian energy blackmail next winter – because the fuller the gas storage tanks at the end of this winter, the less gas Europeans will have to buy in the course of the warm season.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 dealt a severe blow to the European economy. The decoupling from Russian (raw material) suppliers has been in full swing since the beginning of the war, in the capitals of the Union people are feverishly looking for alternative sources – and at the same time trying to save energy as best they can. But how successful are these efforts? Figures from the International Energy Agency IEA, which “Die Presse” evaluated, provide an initial interim balance – and this is ambiguous: the data aggregated up to September of this year show, firstly, that it is anything but easy to allocate energy input and economic output decouple; and secondly, they demonstrate that the weather continues to have a crucial impact on how much energy Europe consumes. In other words, those who wish Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin defeat and Ukraine peace should hope for mild winters and cool summers without an overshooting economy in the coming years.