Thanks to energy efficiency improvements and investment in renewables
MADRID, 24 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Bank of Spain has estimated that a part of the drop in the demand for natural gas from companies, given the escalation in prices experienced last year due to the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, could have a “structural” nature and not return to its previous values, due to the energy efficiency improvements applied and investment in renewables.
In an article on the evolution of the demand for natural gas in the period 2022-2023, the agency has indicated that this demand will probably not recover, despite the fact that gas prices have fallen again from the highs of last year to their historical levels.
In the case of the industry, it had to face, especially in the second half of 2022, higher natural gas prices that more than doubled the prices of the 2017-2021 period.
Within these global figures, different evolutions were observed by sector, since the refining industry was the one that reduced its demand for natural gas the greatest proportion, followed by the cogeneration, paper and chemical/pharmaceutical industries.
With regard to the consumption of natural gas by households, the Bank of Spain has stressed that these showed a lower price rise than other sectors thanks to the measures applied by the Government.
Encouraged by the arrival of the winter storm and the energy prices due to the war in Ukraine, the Government approved a shield of 3,000 million euros to protect consumers from possible increases in regulated gas tariffs, which in practice represents a direct subsidy to customer bills.
Likewise, the reduction in demand in the first half of 2022 and in the first four months of 2023 would be fully explained by warmer temperatures than usual, while a third of the percentage drop in demand in the second half of 2022 would not be explained by temperature and “could be related to the significant increase in prices,” the agency added.
As regards the electricity sector, in 2022 the demand for natural gas was the highest in recent years, due to low hydraulic and cogeneration generation, and, especially, to electricity exports to other countries for temporary reasons.
