Germany's gas storage facilities are emptying at an alarming rate. What does it mean when a nation relies on reserves it no longer possesses?
Thirty-five percent. This figure is displayed on the monitors of the Federal Network Agency this Thursday, it flashes in the control centers of gas storage operators, and it should give pause to anyone turning on their heating these days in January. The fill level of Germany's natural gas storage facilities has fallen to a level not seen since the crisis years of 2022. Back then, when Vladimir Putin turned off the gas taps and Europe descended into collective panic, at least the storage facilities were still full. Today, they are not.
"The gas supply in Germany is stable," the Federal Network Agency announces with the composure of an institution accustomed to packaging alarming news in reassuring platitudes. And yet, even a glance at the figures reveals that this stability rests on shaky foundations: 35.14 percent fill level on January 29, 2026, a decrease of 0.83 percent compared to the previous day. This corresponds to a stored volume of approximately 92 terawatt-hours – with a daily withdrawal of around 1,760 gigawatt-hours. In comparison to other European countries, we are at 43.53 percent – Germany, the land of engineers and planners, ranks below the continental average. Last year, the storage facilities were still sixty percent full at this time.
The Physics of Depth
To understand what these figures mean, one must first abandon a notion that is as obvious as it is wrong: A gas storage facility is not a water tank that can be emptied evenly like a bathtub. It is a pressurized system, a geological structure deep underground in which natural gas is stored under enormous pressure. And here begins the real problem: The emptier the storage facility, the lower the pressure – and the slower the gas can be extracted.
Experts speak of a physical limit that kicks in at around 50 percent fill level. Below this threshold, the maximum daily withdrawal rate drops – the gas is still there, but it can no longer reach the grid quickly enough. Germany, with its nearly 35 percent fill level, is already significantly below this critical mark. Specifically, this means that even if we still have over 90 terawatt-hours available, we can withdraw less of it per day than the raw figures suggest. The maximum daily withdrawal rate, which could theoretically exceed 7,000 gigawatt-hours, is practically unattainable.
The situation is particularly dire for the Bavarian porous rock storage facilities: Wolfersberg reports a fill level of just six percent, and Breitbrunn and Inzenham-West are also operating at critical levels. Several of these facilities will miss the legally mandated 40 percent fill level by February 1st. Unlike the flexible cavern storage facilities in northern Germany, these porous storage facilities are particularly sensitive to pressure losses – a significant portion of the gas remains trapped in the rock as so-called cushion gas, making it technically impossible to extract.
Germany's largest storage facility, the Rehden facility in Lower Saxony, with almost a fifth of the national capacity, currently has a fill level of only around eleven percent. It's like setting off on a long highway drive with the last drop of gasoline in the tank – hoping that all the gas stations along the way are open.
Who is responsible?
The question of how this situation arose leads into a thicket of political failures, economic miscalculations, and blind faith in market mechanisms. In May 2025, the German government lowered the required minimum fill levels from 90 to 70 percent, effective November 1st—a concession to operators who complained about a lack of profitability. The idea seemed plausible: the market would sort it out; price signals would fill the storage facilities. A report by the consulting firm Frontier Economics for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy had even recommended leaving the storage facilities entirely to the market again.
The market did not sort it out. Germany entered winter on November 1, 2025, with only 75 percent capacity, instead of the usual 95 percent. This 20 percentage point difference corresponds to approximately 50 terawatt-hours—enough energy to heat all German households for several weeks. A cold December and a harsh January depleted the remaining reserves. The extreme winter at the end of January 2026, with massive snowfalls and temperatures around freezing, drove gas consumption up.
In addition, the weak wind yield in the autumn of 2025 forced gas-fired power plants to step in – they had to generate electricity because the wind turbines were idle. This so-called gas-to-power problem illustrates a structural dilemma of the energy transition: the less wind there is, the more gas is needed for electricity generation – and vice versa. And finally, the domino effect: Austria, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland have been increasingly sourcing gas from German storage facilities since gas transit through Ukraine finally ceased at the turn of the year. On January 1, 2025, Ukraine ended gas transit through its territory – a geopolitical move whose consequences are now being felt.
In July 2025, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Katherina Reiche lifted the alert level of the emergency gas plan and downgraded it to the early warning level – a signal of reassurance that, in retrospect, proves to have been premature. The Energy Storage Initiative, the association of gas storage operators, had already warned at the time: "We cannot explain why the crisis level is being lowered in a situation where filling gas storage facilities is clearly posing major challenges for market-based actors."
The nightmare scenario
What happens when storage levels fall below a critical threshold? At 20 percent fill, the indicator on the European transparency platform AGSI+ turns red. From this point on, a gas shortage must be declared, and the Federal Network Agency, as the so-called federal load distributor, takes over. It then decides who receives gas – and who doesn't. The gas emergency plan has three escalation levels: early warning, alert, and emergency. Only in the last stage does the government actively intervene in the market.
The good news for private consumers: Households are among the legally protected customers, as are hospitals, nursing homes, schools, fire departments, and police. They will continue to be supplied with gas until the very last minute. Around 56 percent of all apartments and houses in Germany are heated with natural gas – for millions of households, the question of gas supply is not an abstract statistic, but a question of warmth in their own homes. The bad news for everyone else: Industry is at the end of the line.
Energy-intensive companies – paint manufacturers, fertilizer producers, steel mills, automotive suppliers – would have to reduce or completely halt production. In a country whose economy is already struggling, this would be a disaster waiting to happen. According to the Federal Network Agency, industry accounts for around 61 percent of Germany's total gas consumption. Rationing would first affect paint and coatings manufacturers, then steel and metal processing, and finally the automotive industry. The consequences for jobs, value chains, and Germany's industrial base would be devastating.
The Energy Storage Initiative has calculated three scenarios: In the event of a mild winter, the situation remains tense but manageable. In a normal scenario, storage facilities will be significantly depleted but will still be sufficient. In an extreme winter – with temperatures like those of 2010, lasting for weeks below minus five degrees Celsius – the storage facilities would be empty by mid-February. Gas demand could then no longer be fully met. At the current withdrawal rate of 0.8 percentage points per day, the storage facilities would theoretically last for about fifty more days – a simplified calculation that ignores the complex realities of imports, fluctuations in consumption, and pressure losses.
Europe watches on
The European comparison is sobering. While Germany's storage capacity stands at 35 percent, the EU average reaches 43.5 percent. Portugal and Sweden lead the statistics, Croatia brings up the rear – and Germany is dangerously close to the bottom of the scale. This is remarkable for a country that has the largest storage capacity on the continent: 251 terawatt-hours, which corresponds to about 30 percent of Germany's annual consumption. Two-thirds of the total EU storage capacity is concentrated in just five countries: Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Austria.
The irony is that Germany, which styled itself as a European pioneer in gas independence after the Russian supply halt, now finds itself with empty storage facilities. The LNG terminals, hastily built on the North Sea coast, do deliver reliably – around ten percent of German gas imports now come from liquefied natural gas – but they cannot replace the strategic reserves. LNG from the USA takes ten to seventeen days to arrive in Germany. In an acute crisis, that would be too long. Germany still imports most of its gas via pipeline: 48 percent from Norway, 25 percent from the Netherlands, and 18 percent from Belgium.
What everyone can do
For years, the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Relief has recommended a ten-day emergency supply: twenty liters of water per person, non-perishable food such as pasta, rice, and canned goods, medications, candles, batteries, and a hand-cranked radio. Hygiene products, disinfectant, a flashlight, and important documents in a waterproof folder are also recommended. These recommendations were long considered overly cautious, a relic from the Cold War era. Today, they appear in a different light.
The government is communicating cautiously. Federal Minister of Economics Reiche emphasizes that the supply is secure; Federal Network Agency President Klaus Müller merely urges people to use gas sparingly – "simply to save money." There is no mention of actively calling for stockpiling. They don't want to cause panic. But perhaps a minimum of concern would be appropriate. The heating season runs until the end of April – that's a good three months in which every kilowatt-hour saved counts. Lowering the room temperature by one degree saves about six percent on heating costs; shorter showers, sealing windows, bleeding radiators – the measures are well-known, but their implementation remains voluntary.
Stefan Dohler, CEO of the energy supplier EWE, puts it succinctly: "A national gas reserve acts like insurance. Yes, it costs money. But it provides security – like a fire department: It's good to have it, even if you don't need it often." Germany has a strategic oil reserve that can bridge a crisis for ninety days. A comparable gas reserve does not exist. Perhaps it's time to change that – before the next year of frost catches us unprepared once again.
The trembling continues.
In Rehden, Lower Saxony, 160 kilometers west of Hanover, lies the country's largest gas storage facility, buried in porous rock hundreds of meters below the surface. Here, German natural gas was once extracted before the deposit was exhausted and it began to be used for storage. It is an underground cathedral of the fossil fuel age, a relic of a time when energy seemed abundant and no one worried about security of supply. Today, Rehden, with its 11 percent fill level, stands as a symbol of a structural problem: the storage facilities were no longer treated as strategic infrastructure, but as a purely market-driven option.
Today, the country trembles above these caverns. Not from the cold—not yet. But from the realization that prosperity and warmth are not guaranteed. That a modern industrialized nation is more vulnerable than it cares to admit. And that the question "Will there be enough gas for the winter?" is not fear-mongering, but a matter of caution. Austria's massive Haidach storage facility, larger than all of Bavaria's combined, is available to Germany at around 50 percent capacity – a consolation, but not a panacea.
Thirty-five percent. The figure will be lower tomorrow. And even lower the day after. The AGSI+ fill level indicator is already showing yellow; it turns red at 20 percent. Whether it will rise again at some point depends on the weather, the LNG tankers in the Atlantic, the gas pipelines from Norway – and on whether we learn from this crisis or simply repeat it next winter. The lesson from this January is clear: storage facilities must once again be treated as strategic infrastructure, not as a mere add-on to the market economy. Anything else is playing with fire – or, more precisely, with the cold.
Sapere aude!
S.
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