04.08.2022, Niedersachsen, Hannover: Das Heizkraftwerk Linden (·Die drei warmen Brüder·). Viele Gaskraftwerke - wie auch das enercity Gaskraftwerk Linden - drosseln ihren Betrieb in der Stromerzeugung, weil der Rohstoff gespeichert und fürs Heizen aufgehoben werden soll. (Zu dpa ·Enercity: Kaum noch Gas in Stromproduktion· vom 04.08.2022) Foto: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa +++ dpa-Bildfunk +++

Significantly more electricity was produced by gas-fired power plants in Germany in July than in the same month last year. The amount of electricity generated in July 2021 was 3558 gigawatt hours, a year later it was 4036 gigawatt hours. This is an increase of 13.5 percent, according to the Federal Network Agency’s Smard electricity market data portal.

In May 2022, the amount of electricity generated was also significantly higher than in the previous year, but slightly lower in June. If you look to 2020, the figures for all three months are again well above all values ​​for 2021 and 2022. In July 2020, for example, gas-fired power plants generated 5888 gigawatt hours of electricity.

The industry association Zukunft Gas suspects that the reason for the current plus is a sharp increase in demand for electricity from France, where numerous nuclear power plants are currently not connected to the grid, and from Switzerland, where not so much electricity can be produced from hydropower at the moment due to the drought.

Already in the second quarter, electricity exports from Germany to France had increased almost sixfold compared to the previous year. For exports to Switzerland, the increase was even more than sixfold. “These amounts of electricity were partly produced and exported with gas-fired power plants,” said a spokesman for the German Press Agency.

In this context, the President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller, spoke on the ZDF talk show “Markus Lanz” of an effect that had something to do with “neighborly solidarity”, “even if it is undesirable from a gas point of view”. (dpa)