Both of United Kingdom and Germany also other Europe countries have been predicted they will go and meet energy crisis as the impacts of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine. The UK’s Green Party has proposed permanently nationalizing the country’s five major energy companies to ease the current cost of living crisis, The Guardian reported on Wednesday, citing party leaders.
“By bringing the big five energy retail companies into public ownership, setting the price of energy at an affordable rate and absorbing the global price rises, the government could make sure everybody can afford to get through this cost of living crisis,” the party’s co-chair Carla Denyer said, as quoted by the news outlet.
According to the report, the party based its proposal on a recommendation last month by the British Trades Union Congress (TUC), which called for bringing British Gas, E.ON, EDF, Scottish Power and OVO under state control. According to the TUC, the move would cost around £2.9 billion ($3.5 billion), which is not much more than the £2.7 billion ($3.3 billion) the government spent on bailing out another energy firm, Bulb, last year.
In addition, the Greens put forward an initiative to roll back the energy price cap – the maximum amount that households pay for energy – to the level of last fall. At the same time, the party urged London to raise taxes on excessive profits made by the UK’s oil and gas corporations. “Only the government can intervene properly to avoid disaster this coming winter,” Denyer was quoted as saying.
London already raised the price cap on electricity earlier this year, which resulted in the average annual bill for a British household soaring 54% to a record £1,970 ($2,400). At the end of August, the UK regulator is expected to announce a new cap rise, which could result in annual electricity bills soaring to over £3,000 ($3,600) in October and even higher bills next year, according to recent forecasts.
Natural gas reserves will last less than three months if Russia cuts off supply, the regulator said. Germany’s energy regulator has warned that the nation will struggle to have enough natural gas to get through the coming winter, even if reserves are topped up in line with government targets, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The Federal Network Agency says natural gas storage sites are currently 77% full, which is two weeks ahead of schedule. However, according to the regulator, the target of being 85% full by October could be challenging, taking into account the risk of a cooler-than-normal autumn and the chance of further supply disruptions.
It further noted that the November target of 95% seems “hard to achieve” because some storage sites require more time to fill. Even if that target is reached it would cover less than three months of heating, industrial and power demand in case Russia cuts off gas supplies completely, the FNA warned.
“I cannot promise you that all storage facilities in Germany will be 95% full in November, even under good supply and demand conditions,” said FNA president Klaus Mueller. “In the best-case scenario, three-fourths of them will meet the target.”
The German government, which has been racing to fill its winter stocks, has also urged businesses and citizens to lower consumption, warned of energy rationing and this week slapped a levy on gas use.
Theoritically and politically, if Russia cuts of their energy supply to certain Europe countries can make economic and political uncertainty around the Europe and this moment is wanted Russia because Russia want to punish every country which are opposite to Russia.
