Almost blacked out by the mainstream media, an incident occurred last month that could have caused a blackout of gas in Germany, had the government not intervened with a three-digit million sum to secure the supply of gas. The incident, reported in an article Jan. 9 on the website of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) network of non-green energy experts, sheds light on the increasingly dramatic situation in the energy sector. The city of Berlin suffered a blackout on the Jan. 8-9 weekend, in which 90,000 customers lost power.
In December, the German Economic Ministry instructed the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) to transfer a three-digit million sum to Trading Hub Europe GmbH (THE) in order to secure Germany’s supply of gas. The trading company would otherwise have been unable to pay for the gas it needs to keep the gas pipelines under pressure in December. THE GmbH is the central body responsible for the gas market in Germany. THE oversees the 40,000 km high-pressure power system that transports natural gas to consumers in Germany and organizes the expansion and, above all, the procurement of natural gas.
