Project

Germany's energy supply is currently primarily still based on the use of fossil fuels. With the energy turnaround, the transformation is increasingly moving away from fossil, resource-intensive energy sources to an environmentally friendly, greenhouse gas-neutral energy supply. In addition to the expansion of renewable energies and the exploitation of energy efficiency potentials across all ap-plication areas, the integration of sector coupling technologies for a success of this transformation is fundamental. Nevertheless, the demand for gaseous end energy sources will continue to exist in the long term. To this end, the necessary infrastructural adjustments must be taken into account in the transformation of the energy system. In the process, the changed gas sales volumes, changed gas compositions, and even to a pure hydrogen economy as well as a diversification of the supplier countries, e.g. by building up an own LNG infrastructure. Against this background, the project will provide an overview of the gas infrastructure and its development possibilities within the framework of the German government's energy and climate protection goals and develop strategic guidelines for the necessary infrastructural decisions for gaseous energy carriers.

The project aims at advising the German Environment Agency and the German Ministry for the Environment on energy and climate policy issues, which particularly concern the future supply of gaseous energy sources and the necessary conversion of gas infrastructures. In this context, a comprehensive overview of both current plans and desirable target states and associated conversion paths from the point of view of climate protection and security of supply is given, primarily on the basis of the existing literature. The following points will be addressed:

• Factors incluencing the development of the gas infrastructure, planning and projects within the framework of the European & German gas network development plans;
• Plans and projects in Germany for the development of a liquefied natural gas infrastructure and their obstacles;
• Development of future gas demand;
• Conversion & further use of gas infrastructure at distribution grid level;
• Shaping the transition to a hydrogen-based gas supply;
• Shaping the transition from natural gas to hydrogen use in the energy industry.

In this context, options for action, requirements and their temporal prioritisation are presented in the form of compact overviews and roadmaps for upcoming political processes. Strategic guard rails will be developed that show which measures are to be implemented in each case ("no regret"), which path dependencies exist ("lock-ins") and with which measures these can be overcome. Particular attention is given to the increased use of hydrogen in the future instead of and/or in combination with gases containing hydrocarbons.

From July 2020 until June 2022

German Environment Agency UBA

• Fraunhofer IEG
  
• DVGW - Deutscher Verein des Gas- und Wasserfaches e. V.
• DVGW - Forschungsstelle am Engler-Bunte-Institut des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT)