BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 6. Assuming European gas-for-power demand to decrease by 15 percent, the imbalance in supply and demand could swell right now and worsen through 2023, with the deficit reaching a maximum of 13.5 TWh before slowly falling, Trend reports via the research from Rystad Energy, an independent energy research and business intelligence company from Norway.
According to the forecast, this indicates an overall electricity deficit in the EU of 51 TWh from September 2022 through March 2023, which will have to be compensated by additional imports from Norway, the UK and Switzerland, or other neighboring countries.
As Rystad Energy explained, the deficit could be also diminished by cutting total demand.
"If so, demand would need to decrease by 5 percent from the year-earlier period," said the company.
“A worst-case scenario with very cold weather, low wind generation, and a 15 percent cut in gas-for-power demand would prove very challenging for the European power system, and could lead to power rationing and blackouts…demand has already dropped about 2 percent so far this year – but expanding this to a 5 percent reduction would appear a stretch,” the forecast said.
In addition, currently, gas is by far the most flexible source of supply in Europe, helping to balance supply and demand, for example, during periods of high solar and wind variation. It would not be easy to gain such flexibility from other sources, such as nuclear power or coal, Rystad Energy noted.
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