Capacity payments for gas stations are already being prepared. Natural gas will thus be able to play its episodic role

According to the strategic document, the Czech Republic has the advantage of a robust infrastructure that enables the use of natural gas both in central sources and at the local level in households in gas boilers or smaller joint systems, i.e. gas mini-thermal plants producing both heat and electricity.

Another advantage of the gas industry is related to the fact that Europe has managed to build a sufficient infrastructure for LNG, i.e. liquefied gas. Thanks to the fact that dozens of LNG terminals have opened on the coasts of European states since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Europe can take advantage of competition in a relatively stable and, above all, ever-growing global LNG market. Thanks to this, the current prices are similar to those of mid-2021.

On the contrary, the disadvantage of natural gas is that Europe has to import it in large quantities, not always from friendly countries, and also that as a fossil fuel it can only be used for a temporary period. In this regard, according to the material, it is necessary to ensure the gradual decarbonization of the gas sector. Natural gas should be replaced by low-carbon and renewable gases, i.e. hydrogen or biomethane. Thanks to this, the gas industry should maintain its position as a processor of an important fuel even in the future, when Europe is supposed to become so-called carbon neutral.

Heating plants in advantage

In 2022, roughly four terawatt hours of electricity were produced from natural gas, which is approximately five percent of total production. According to the proposal of the State Energy Concept, this share should increase by two percentage points by 2030, but by 2040 it should fall below five percent again, in favor of the gradually increasing importance of hydrogen and biomethane.

This scenario is to be ensured by new gas sources that will initially produce purely from natural gas, but at the same time will be able to gradually switch to emission-free gas. According to the General Director of the Gas Association, Josef Kotrba, today the state expects that the new central gas sources will have a total installed capacity of 0.8 gigawatts, which is roughly a third of today’s gas capacity. But he himself would prefer much more ambitious plans.

“During the construction of gas sources, it is necessary to take into account the shutdown of nine gigawatts of installed coal power. So far, in its strategic documents, the state expects to replace less than one-tenth of these sources with gas, which is comparable, for example, to the performance of the already operating steam-gas source in Počerady,” says Kotrba. “I would be calmer if coal-fired power plants were replaced by new gas sources in the installed capacity of at least half, i.e. 4.5 gigawatts.”

However, energy companies are not yet planning such significant investments in gas. And if any new gas projects are already in the works, they are primarily thermal sources, which essentially have a higher thermal output than the electric one. This applies, for example, to the planned modernization of the Mělník heating plant from the ČEZ group, heating plants from the portfolio of the Veolia group or heating plants from the EPH holding, for example the one from Opatovice nad Labem, which supplies heat to Hradec Králové and Pardubice.