Stronger-than-usual gas burn in western Europe this injection season has cut volumes available for storage, as record-breaking summer temperatures have elevated cooling-related power demand, reduced hydro output and forced nuclear outages.
Power-sector gas demand in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands has been 9.6TWh above the three-year average this injection season, Argus calculations show. If that gas had instead been injected into storage, stocks in those countries would be at 60.9pc of capacity, around 1.2 percentage points above current levels, according to GIE transparency platform data as of Thursday morning.
The increase has been mostly driven by Italy and Spain, where the power sectors consumed a combined 16.8TWh more gas on 1 April-18 August than the three-year average for the same period. Both countries have more widespread air-conditioning than those further north, significantly raising electricity demand during what has been one of Europe's hottest summers on record. In Italy, dry weather has also reduced hydro output, further increasing reliance on gas-fired plants.
As a result, more gas has been used for power generation instead of storage injections. Spain has relatively limited underground storage capacity and Italy's regulatory framework has kept stocks in a healthy position, but both countries have retained additional gas within their domestic grids to meet power-sector demand.
Italy has maintained strong pipeline inflows from France and Germany via Switzerland, while Spain — which increased imports from Algeria and Portugal — also imported from France from mid-June to early August. This altered wider regional flows because France's additional export demand during a period of tight LNG supply led it to import significant volumes from Belgium.
The increased reliance on gas-fired generation in both Mediterranean countries has come despite an expansion in renewable capacity and output. In Spain, solar capacity has more than doubled from 24.3GW in April 2023 to 53.7GW in April 2026, grid operator Red Electrica data show. Since June, Spanish solar has generated 21.2TWh — more than any summer on record — despite over 10 days remaining until the end of August, Fraunhofer ISE data show. Italy has not had a similarly rapid buildout of solar capacity, but generation of 12.2TWh this summer so far is still well above the 10.7TWh three-year summer average.
Some countries further north in western Europe, despite having relatively less air-conditioning use, also consumed more gas for power than in recent years because of a combination of nuclear outages and reduced hydro output. France, the Netherlands and Belgium consumed nearly 5.5TWh more gas in the sector than the three-year average.
This was partly driven by planned and unplanned nuclear capacity cuts, as the French nuclear fleet experienced widespread heat- and drought-related outages and Belgium shut its two remaining 1GW reactors for maintenance in early April until November. Hydro output has also fallen across Europe's main hydro-rich regions, reflecting lower winter snow accumulation, which led to reduced snowmelt inflows, and limited rainfall and heat-driven evaporation from rivers and lakes this summer.
But Germany and the UK offset a large share of the rise in power-sector gas demand. Argus estimates that the German power sector alone consumed 8.8TWh less gas than the three-year average, assuming an average gas plant fleet efficiency of 55pc. Prices since at least mid-July have incentivised gas-to-lignite and gas-to-coal switching, as even the least efficient German coal-fired plants have been more profitable to run than the most efficient gas-fired power plants.
The UK's power sector consumed 3.9TWh less gas than the three-year average. April alone accounted for nearly all the deficit because above-average wind, solar and nuclear output that month kept gas burn low.
