Paris - (AFP) - In her small home on the coast of Belgium, Sophie Diroux confirms that "well-heating the house" has become a more difficult goal this year with the sharp rise in energy bills across Europe.
Like millions of Europeans, the 41-year-old engineering company employee has seen her bill rise since the spring after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the gradual curtailment of Russian pipeline gas to Europe.
Gas prices jumped, which led to turmoil in global markets and caused very tangible and costly repercussions, as Europe and Asia raced to buy LNG shipments from the United States, Qatar and other producing countries.
While countries such as Spain and France froze consumer prices, others such as Belgium allowed suppliers to more or less pass on to customers the increase in prices.
“I panicked a bit,” says Sophie, whose house in Ostduinkirke is 90 square meters in size and does not control the heat very well. Before the war, she used to pay 120 euros a month for gas and electricity, and her bill rose to 330 euros.
But she sees a positive side in the matter, as she monitors her consumption and keeps the house temperature at 18 degrees Celsius instead of 21 previously, and is also looking for ways to install solar panels and reinforced insulating glass.
Like Sophie, a new generation of Belgians, French and Italians have realized their energy negligence in 2022 and learned to monitor their consumption. Before the war, gas was abundant and cheap, and its reference price in the European market was about 20 euros per megawatt hour, but this year it rose to 300 before falling back to about 100 euros.
"I've never seen a period of such turmoil," says Graham Friedman, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie who has studied the natural gas market for 40 years.
Because of the crazy prices, factories were forced to stop, especially in the German chemical sector, which has relied on Russian gas since the Soviet era. Despite this, European reserves were filled to capacity in the summer thanks to the last supplies of Russian gas, and no one suffered from power outages.
"Until February, the idea that Europe could continue without Russian energy seemed impossible," says Simon Tagliapietra of the Bruegel Center think tank in Brussels, but "the impossible has become possible."
The Europeans were also lucky, as the mild weather in the fall delayed the use of heating methods.
But what happened was surprising, as they significantly reduced energy consumption: -20% for gas in the European Union from August to November compared to the previous five years, according to Eurostat.
Half of Germans have gas stoves, and the drop in consumption is "sharp, massive," says Leon Hirth, professor of energy policy at the Hertie School in Berlin. He sees this as a desire to "not pay Putin" as much as a desire to reduce the bills.
It is expected that energy bills will remain high, while experts point out that the gas price ceiling agreed upon by the European Union in December will have only a limited effect on reducing them.
Within months, Russia lost the largest buyer of its gas, which is Europe, whose purchases fell from 191 billion cubic meters in 2019 to 90 billion this year, and perhaps 38 next year, as Wood Mackenzie expects.
Europe had to make up the difference with liquefied natural gas, which the European Union used to avoid due to its high cost.
This was not without negative effects, as "Europe began to pay more than Asia for gas, and countries such as India and Pakistan could not compete," as Graham Friedman asserts.
It also has climate implications, because of the lack of liquefied natural gas, less affluent countries are burning more coal.
To offload LNG from tankers, ports are needed that are able to regasify it and pump it into pipeline networks. Germany accelerated the creation of the first platform of this kind in December.
And 26 new stations were announced on the continent, including a fifth station in France, which was established in Le Havre, according to the "Global Energy Monitor", which fears that the matter will lead to Europe's dependence on gas again at a time when it seeks to move to renewable energy sources.
But next winter and the following winter, there will be no more Russian gas to fill the tanks during the spring and summer.
"The colder the winter, the more LNG will have to be bought since spring, and thus the 'battle' between Europe and Asia will intensify," Kepler gas expert Laura Paige told AFP.
Graham Friedman agrees: "There is not enough gas in the world to replace Russian gas."
New LNG projects will not produce millions of tons more until 2025 or 2026.
By then, will Europeans learn to live in 18°C?
