Historical change in the composition of shareholders of Latvijas Gāze

The consumption of natural gas in Latvia and in Europe continues to decrease, experts believe that such a trend will continue to be observed in the future.

A phase-out of carbon-intensive electricity production, including natural gas, is a goal of the European Union’s (EU) climate and energy policy, but it won’t happen overnight – it will take around ten years, according to Mārtiņš Vancāns, the chairman of the European Union. the board of the energy company Enefit. He says the main driving forces in Baltic energy prices, including Latvia, have historically been related to fossil fuel prices and CO2 emissions, as well as the demand for electricity. Currently, the situation is changing, and renewable energy resources are playing an increasingly important role, notes M. Vancāns.

Cost issue

Although natural gas offers electricity production with lower carbon emissions, in the long term it will be replaced by new and cleaner technologies, according to M. Vancāns. “We expect that with the increase in renewable energy production, the demand for gas will decrease, however, as the availability of renewable energy resources is largely unregulated, we will still need on natural gas power plants as well. Likewise, gas will play an important role in the future energy balance as a reserve or balancing power. In theory, gas could be completely replaced, but this is a cost issue. The price of CO2 emission allowances would have to increase significantly or other energy technologies would have to be much cheaper to push gas power plants out of production. By expanding the use of renewable energy sources, the overall demand for gas will definitely decrease, but it will still have an important role as a production back-up. Currently, the Baltic states are focusing on the development of renewable energy production capacities, but this creates a demand for large energy storage solutions and controllable production capacities to make the energy market stable and predictable ,” said M. Vancāns.