Gas storage across Europe is now filled at just under 90% capacity, reaching a mandatory target to ensure the continent can power itself through winter with months to spare. #EuropeNews
But I would strongly recommend, that you look at Spain and Italy. Both operate gas power plants even during sun hours of sunny days. So a bit more solar and that is going to reduce consumption by a lot. Propably more then Germany running full power gas power plants for a few weeks each year.
Thats what the 25GW of natural gas power plants for Germany turned into. 4.4GW of hdrogen power plants, another 4.4GW of mixed hydrogen and natural gas power plants and up to 15GW of natural gas power plants, which have to be ocnverted to hyrogen by 2035.. There is also the problem of some coal power plants mainly lignite being baseload. This means they run even when renewables are available. So there is no need to replace all coal electricity with gas. Even more to the point, battery storage is growing relativly well in Germany, which should reduce gas consumption, when only short periods need to be covered, which is very common. All in all German gas consumption might increase, but with some trade and so forth, it might also just stay stable.
But I would strongly recommend, that you look at Spain and Italy. Both operate gas power plants even during sun hours of sunny days. So a bit more solar and that is going to reduce consumption by a lot. Propably more then Germany running full power gas power plants for a few weeks each year.