In a debate on security of supply, the minister indicated that there will be a ‘turnaround’ in the Dutch energy system in the coming months. Normally, private parties fill our storage rooms at low gas prices in the warm summer months. But now that prices have skyrocketed, market parties have no ‘incentive’ to fill those storage facilities.
Stocks
Jetten will announce a package of measures within a few weeks on how those stocks will still be filled. These measures vary from ‘hedging price risks’ to ‘filling storage facilities by a party to be determined by the government’.
There are many concerns in the House about security of supply. Although the storage areas are still relatively well filled – partly due to a relatively warm winter and lower consumption – MPs also want guarantees for the coming months. Jetten says that he must intervene in the market because otherwise he cannot give those guarantees.
In addition to focusing on sustainability with a major campaign for conscious energy consumption, the Netherlands will also take rapid steps to supply Europe and the Netherlands with different gas. A floating pontoon is being built urgently in Eemshaven for the supply of LNG, liquefied gas. Although this gas is currently expensive, a large part of Germany and, for example, Belgium can be supplied from the Dutch port in the coming years. The Nederlandse Gasunie, among others, has already called for this.
MPs from GL, PvdA and PvdD also called on the minister, among other things, to put the ‘gas protection and recovery plan’ into effect. With this, large companies that use a lot of gas can be switched off, among other things.
Jetten says that this is not possible at the moment, because there is no question of a gas crisis in the Netherlands now that our stocks are still well filled. The minister points out that many large companies have already reduced their production as a result of the sharply rising prices.
large consumers
However, some 49 companies were asked what options they see for accelerated reduction of gas consumption in the event that these stocks ‘run out’. Jetten did announce that it would map out the number of large consumers and is investigating options for faster sustainability, for example through enforcement.
Another option that is still floating above the market is to further stoke coal-fired power stations, which were scaled down and partly bought out after the Urgenda judgment. Experts from TNO and Eindhoven University of Technology, among others, recently argued in favor of this. Jetten does not rule out that more coal will have to be burned in the long term, but wants to have further analyzes made first. “I do not expect that the further opening of coal-fired power stations will lead to a price reduction.”