In eastern France, a dozen villages have been shutting off their streetlights at midnight. Barcelona is offering home efficiency assessments. Warsaw is subsidising homes that replace fossil-burning stoves with heat pumps. With the war in Ukraine spurring soaring oil and gas prices and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia showing his willingness to use Russia’s energy resources as a weapon, towns and cities across Europe are finding different ways to shave energy usage.
As the single largest European consumer of Russian gas, Germany may be the country most vulnerable to Russia’s energy squeeze, but many other countries are also facing, at minimum, high prices and restricted supplies. The severity or mildness of the coming winter will be a key factor.
A mild winter in Europe would reduce global demand for gas, as would continued Covid-related lockdowns in China, which is the world’s largest consumer of gas. Conversely, a harsh winter with biting temperatures would increase demand, and send prices even higher.
