Overview
- On Thursday operators grouped in Initiative Energien Speichern (Ines) published an action plan calling for immediate measures such as abolishing the conversion levy, cutting network charges at storage connection points, and offering cheap state loans to make injections financially viable.
- Ines said filling is currently loss-making for operators, citing an example loss of about €3.14 per megawatt-hour for gas bought and stored today.
- The official fill level was confirmed at roughly 53.6% after a reporting error on the AGSI platform — caused by values entered in TWh instead of percent — was corrected by Enercity and storage operators.
- The federal economics ministry, led by Katherina Reiche, rejected direct state intervention and pointed to Germany’s new LNG import terminals as a buffer against supply shortfalls, while warning that prices could still rise this winter.
- Operators warn the shortfall versus the roughly 70% target for November 1st could mean higher winter bills and greater reliance on imports unless Germany adopts short‑term incentives or market mechanisms such as long‑term options to secure extra storage injections.