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In all, Germany\u2019s gas grid boasts a length of more than 500,000 kilometres<\/a> \u2013 enough to go around the world more than 12 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as Germany starts to shift away from gas, this fine network of underground pipelines may soon become obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe farewell to natural gas and the switch to green district heating and heat pumps place new demands on the energy grid,\u201d said Simon M\u00fcller, Germany chief at Agora Energiewende, who was the lead author on the study<\/a> released on Tuesday (18 April).<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSwitch to climate-neutral energy makes most of the gas distribution networks redundant,\u201d the think-tank added in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2045, Germany aims to be climate-neutral. As such, households are looking to switch from gas to cleaner sources of heating and industry seeking to use hydrogen and its derivatives instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Citing an array of leading German climate studies, the think-tank notes that by 2045, demand for gas \u2013 fossil and bio \u2013 will drop by 85% to 97%. Meanwhile, demand for hydrogen is expected to come in at 266 Terawatt-hours \u2013 30% of energetic demand for fossil gas today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Should network operators fail to plan ahead, the think-tank warns of \u20ac10 billion of stranded assets without a purpose and significant added costs to consumers \u2013 who would be forced to bear the stranded assets\u2019 costs through up to 16 times higher grid fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany is in the midst of a political fight over the future of gas networks, whose operators say they are a valuable asset and could easily be repurposed to transport hydrogen instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Gas and water grid association DGVW contends<\/a> that 98% of Germany\u2019s gas grid could accommodate hydrogen. Dismantling the grid would destroy an infrastructure \u201cworth several hundred billion euros,\u201d industry lobby chief Gerald Linke, head of DGVW, told Welt am Sonntag<\/em> in 2022<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Experts have questioned this claim, given that hydrogen is much more prone to leaking than fossil gas \u2013 given its relatively much smaller molecule size \u2013 requiring a total revamp of valves and associated grid equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, Agora Energiewende estimates the gas grid\u2019s value at 20% of total investment, coming out to \u20ac60 billion. And due to the high earnings of gas companies, most of that investment already paid out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe majority of the network investments have already been refinanced despite the long depreciation period of around 45 years, so that the residual value in relation to the new value is manageable,\u201d says M\u00fcller. Just in 2021, grid operators invested a record sum of \u20ac1.1 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Few countries embraced fossil gas as strongly as Germany did. Not only do 20 million households rely on the gaseous fuels for heating, it fuels its world-leading chemical industry. In all, Germany\u2019s gas grid boasts a length of more than 500,000 kilometres \u2013 enough to go around the world more than 12 times. But as Germany starts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"As Germany transitions away from fossil fuels to achieve climate neutrality by 2035, Berlin-based think-tank Agora Energiewende estimates that between 71 to 94% of the existing gas grid may become redundant","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[15317,19420],"supplier":[14169],"class_list":["post-125787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-fossilfuels","tag-naturalgas","supplier-agora-energiewende"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125787"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=125787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fight for the future<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n