Minister for Energy 'reasonably optimistic' that there will be no supply problems

Turmes took advantage of the presentation of the new emergency plan for the security of Luxembourg's natural gas supply on Wednesday to discuss the state of the country's reserves. The Minister announced that Luxembourg currently meets its natural gas demand reduction targets. "In August, the reduction corresponded to 37% and in September, to about 26% compared to the reference years," he said. The EU currently sets a "voluntary" consumption reduction target of 15%.

According to the Minister, these encouraging figures show that "in Luxembourg, everyone, the State, municipalities, businesses, and residents, is responding to the call and saving energy in a consistent manner." Turmes expressed his gratitude to "everyone for their contribution" but stressed that it is critical to "remain prudent." "If the winter is going to be really cold," he explained, "gas use for heating will most likely increase significantly." For this reason, the Minister urged continuous efforts to save energy.

Emergency plan for natural gas supply security

The Minister also presented a revised version of the emergency plan for natural gas supply security. The development of this plan began in February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukrainian territory. It specifies "protected customers" and the level of priority given to them in the event of a shortage. These protected customers include residential customers, essential services, and district heating plants. The plan also puts in place three crisis levels to mitigate the impact of a gas supply disruption.

The good news is that none of the three alert levels are currently active. "The update of the emergency plan for natural gas supply security provides us with a toolkit that allows us to respond to different scenarios with appropriate steps to ensure supply security," Turmes explained.

In the case of an emergency, the industrial sector has pledged that 50 to 60 of the sector's biggest companies will reduce their gas consumption by 15%. In this scenario, the companies would swap gas between themselves, depending on the needs of the individual businesses.

If there are gas shortages, the temperature in public buildings and offices will be reduced to 19 degrees. In the event of an emergency, the temperature in private homes that are heated with gas will also be reduced to 19 degrees.

Public swimming pools and saunas would also be affected by measures. Temperatures in pools would be lowered and both open-air pools and saunas would be closed.

It should be noted that these are emergency measures that would only be triggered in the event that the gas supply from Norway or Belgium would be disrupted, for instance due to sabotage.