Munich (dpa/lby) – The rise in gas prices and appeals to save energy are obviously having an effect: in Munich, gas consumption fell sharply in November compared to previous years, as the Munich public utility company announced on Wednesday. Private households and medium-sized companies therefore consumed 20 percent less natural gas than would have been expected based on the temperatures and the data from the previous years 2018 to 2021. The industry even reduced its consumption by almost 29 percent.
According to the municipal utility company, the analysis is “temperature-adjusted” for households and medium-sized businesses, which means that the influence of the weather has been eliminated. In industry, outside temperatures play a lesser role anyway, since gas is mainly used for production and less for heating.
Of course, the Munich public utility company does not have data for gas consumption outside of Munich, but there have already been analyzes in the previous months that citizens and companies are saving nationwide. In view of the uncertainties of the weather, SWM CEO Florian Bieberbach made no forecast that gas consumption could fall so sharply in the rest of the winter: “It is not yet possible to assess whether and how longer or extreme cold periods will affect consumption behavior.”
