New energy saving package announced in Germany including mandatory “heating check”

New energy saving package announced in Germany including mandatory "heating check"

New energy saving package announced in Germany including mandatory "heating check". Image: ChiccoDodiFC/Shutterstock.com

GERMANY’S Minister of Economics Robert Habeck has announced further measures to save energy in the country.

Speaking in Berlin on Thursday, July 21, Habeck announced another energy security package for Germany in which he blamed Russia and introduced a mandatory “heating check”.

The country has been subject to major energy concerns since the gas supply from the Russian Nord Stream 1 pipeline was drastically reduced and the country began to take energy-saving measures citing climate change and the war in Ukraine.

Included in the new energy package were stricter requirements for filling the gas storage and measures to save energy in public buildings plus a mandatory “heating check”.

Measures are also planned to save gas when heating apartments.

“Minister of Economics Habeck announced further measures to save energy: among other things, heating private pools are to be banned, gas is to be saved with working at home and corridors in public buildings are no longer to be heated,” Welt’s Philipp Vetter tweeted.

Speaking about the mandatory “heating check” included in the new package, Mr Vetter revealed that Habeck said:

“Habeck spoke out against “heat police”, bans such as heating pools should not be controlled, he drew a comparison to the Corona pandemic: in the lockdown violations of the number of people in private homes were also only controlled by people complaining.”

Habeck said precautions for the winter must be stepped up.

“We need staying power,” he said. “The second winter will still present us with challenges.”

With Russia being an uncertain source of the country’s gas supply, Habeck said that storage levels should be 75 per cent full by September 1, 85 per cent by October 1 instead of 80 per cent as before and 95 per cent by November 1 instead of 90 per cent as before.

More energy should also be saved in residential buildings. Tenants should also have more scope to save energy.

According to the ministry, there are currently some contractual obligations to maintain a minimum temperature in rented rooms.

“This means that if these tenants want to heat less, they are violating their rental contracts. For this reason, these contractual obligations are to be temporarily suspended – in close coordination with the federal government departments concerned – so that tenants who want to save energy and turn down the heating can also do so.”

The energy crisis has been felt all over Germany in the month of July.

On Wednesday, July 6, the Mayor of Augsburg, Eva Weber, said that the southern German town considered switching off their traffic lights to conserve energy.

Then on Wednesday, July 13, it was announced that gas heating systems would gradually become a thing of the past in Germany because as of 2024 they may no longer be newly installed.

This is part of an immediate climate protection programme intended to help achieve the CO2 targets in the lagging sectors of buildings and transport.


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Written by

Matthew Roscoe

Originally from the UK, Matthew is based on the Costa Blanca and is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com.

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