Not sure about today but ever since the shale boom in the US it’s been among the cheapest. A main stumbling block for renewables adoption has been competing the price of gas electricity generation.
For one, shale gas/oil is cheap domestically in the US because of subsidies, otherwise it probably couldn’t compete with conventionally-sourced oil/gas. For two, to get the stuff to Europe, you need to liquefy it and put it on a tanker and then travel a bit. Hence, LNG overall (much of it from Russia rather than the US, actually!) is used only for the final percentage points rather than being a dominant source. The dominant source of pipeline gas in Germany used to be Russia. Since 2022, the dominant source of gas is Norway.
What’s not visible in the graph above is that consumption also went down considerably (by ~20%) in Germany since 2022, as people adjusted down their boilers, and the recession took hold.
The US Henry Hub is at $3.42/million btu and the Dutch TTF is at $12.11/million btu right now. Those are the two main hubs in the US and the EU, thats why I used them, but it shows the massive cost of shipping LNG to Europe.
Gas power plants can not compete in Germany against wind or solar. The best they can do is back up, but electricity storage like batteries will take a lot of market share from that as well.
Not sure about today but ever since the shale boom in the US it’s been among the cheapest. A main stumbling block for renewables adoption has been competing the price of gas electricity generation.
Though there is a subtle difference. The US has a lot of oil and natural gas. While German hasn’t. We used to get the majority from Russia.
For one, shale gas/oil is cheap domestically in the US because of subsidies, otherwise it probably couldn’t compete with conventionally-sourced oil/gas. For two, to get the stuff to Europe, you need to liquefy it and put it on a tanker and then travel a bit. Hence, LNG overall (much of it from Russia rather than the US, actually!) is used only for the final percentage points rather than being a dominant source. The dominant source of pipeline gas in Germany used to be Russia. Since 2022, the dominant source of gas is Norway.
What’s not visible in the graph above is that consumption also went down considerably (by ~20%) in Germany since 2022, as people adjusted down their boilers, and the recession took hold.
The US Henry Hub is at $3.42/million btu and the Dutch TTF is at $12.11/million btu right now. Those are the two main hubs in the US and the EU, thats why I used them, but it shows the massive cost of shipping LNG to Europe.
Gas power plants can not compete in Germany against wind or solar. The best they can do is back up, but electricity storage like batteries will take a lot of market share from that as well.