In order to achieve Germany's climate targets, it is essential to transform the heat supply by increasing energy efficiency and moving away from conventional energy sources. This transformation toward greater climate protection is referred to as the “heat transition”. The heat transition affects a wide range of players in the energy industry, presents them with major challenges, and entails fundamental adjustments at all levels of the value chain in Lower Saxony's gas supply. However, the role of gas supply within the heat transition is still unclear and was therefore examined within this project.

Starting from municipal utilities as a central player in the gas industry, the question was what impact the heat transition will have on gas supply in Lower Saxony. The project created a discussion platform for this, which discussed questions regarding natural gas alternatives, the use of the existing infrastructure, the balancing of affordability, supply security and environmental compatibility as well as consequences for business models and resulting opportunities.

The gas industry is characterized by the dependencies of the individual stages of the value chain. To date, Lower Saxony has a leading position in the German gas supply, with the entire value chain from production, transmission, storage and distribution to consumption being located here. Within this project, the entire gas supply in Lower Saxony was considered and integrated into the discussion in order to work out which challenges the individual stages of the value chain had to solve. For this purpose, various event formats were organized, which offered stakeholders of the Lower Saxony gas industry opportunities for discussion and involved their stakeholders at an early stage in order to proactively reflect their views, wishes and concerns in the discourse on the heat transition. The discourse showed the first steps towards a climate-neutral heat supply and the resulting opportunities that arise in the future. The results can be found in the impulse paper linked below.

Project Management: Prof. Dr. Christian Busse

Scientific Assistant: Julien Minnemann, M.A.

Funding: Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony

Funding Programme: “Zukunftsdiskurse”

Duration: 01.01.2023 until 31.12.2024

You can download the impulse paper (in German) at the following link: Impulspapier Wärmewende voraus