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NORD STREAM

Nord Stream 2 pipeline has stopped leaking gas under Baltic Sea: spokesman

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline is no longer leaking under the Baltic Sea because an equilibrium has been reached between the gas and water pressure, a spokesman told AFP.

Published: 1 October 2022 20:09 CEST
nord stream 1 gas terminal
This file photo from 2011 shows a view of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline terminal. Gas leaks identified on the twin Nord Stream 2 pipeline have now stopped. Photo: John MACDOUGALL / AFP

“The water pressure has more or less closed the pipeline so that the gas which is inside can’t go out,” Nord Stream 2 spokesman Ulrich Lissek said.

“The conclusion is that there is still gas in the pipeline,” he added.

Asked how much gas was believed to be in the pipeline, Lissek said: “That is the one-million-dollar question.”

Information on the status of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline leak, which was significantly larger, was not immediately available.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which connect Russia to Germany, have been at the centre of geopolitical tensions as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation against Western sanctions following Moscow’s
invasion of Ukraine.

While the pipelines are not currently in operation, they both still contained gas before they fell victim to apparent sabotage, producing four leaks.

Nord stream leak site

One of the Nord Stream leak sites photographed by the Swedish Coast Guard. A Danish-Swedish report said on Friday that the leaks were caused by blasts equal to “several hundred kilos of TNT”. Photo: Swedish Coast Guard.
Gas nearly exhausted

A Danish-Swedish report released on Friday concluded the leaks were caused by underwater explosions corresponding to hundreds of kilogrammes of explosives.

“All available information indicates that those explosions are the result of a deliberate act,” the countries said.

The source of the explosions has remained a mystery, however, with both Moscow and Washington denying responsibility.

All the leaks, which were discovered on Monday, are in the Baltic Sea off the Danish island of Bornholm.

Two of the leaks are located in the Swedish exclusive economic zone, and the two others in the Danish one.

Lissek said Nord Stream 2 had informed the Danish energy regulator earlier Saturday that the pipeline had stopped leaking gas.

Danish authorities had said the leaks would continue until the gas in the pipelines is exhausted, which is expected to occur on Sunday.

The Swedish coastguard said late Friday that the leaks on Nord Stream 2 showed signs of weakening due to the exhaustion of the gas contained in the pipes.

The diameter of the sea surface “boiling” caused by the leak in the Swedish exclusive economic zone was now only 20 metres (66 feet) wide, 10 times smaller than at the start.

The leak on Nord Stream 1 had also started to weaken on Friday, with surface diameter down to 600 metres in diameter, down from between 900 and 1,000 metres on Monday.

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ENERGY

Danish electricity company announces ‘record negative prices’ after sunny May

A high number of sunny days in May gave Danish energy company Norlys a record number of hours in which its energy prices were negative, the company said on Monday.

Published: 3 June 2024 09:45 CEST
Danish electricity company announces 'record negative prices' after sunny May

Last month saw a total of 75 and 59 hours of ‘negative’ electricity prices in the western and eastern halves of Denmark respectively, Norlys said in a press release.

Unfortunately, a ‘negative’ price doesn’t mean you will be paid for switching the lights on, because taxes and transport costs must still be added to the base price.

Specifically, the total price paid by customers can include (in addition to the base rate) state tariffs, subscriptions, one-off charges, VAT and payments to the local energy grid.

Tariffs, like the cost of raw electricity, can also fluctuate from hour to hour. This depends on the tariff model used by individual companies.

But lower electricity prices can be taken advantage of by setting timers on thirsty appliances like dishwashers and tumble dryers and running them at these times. This can include off-peak times of the day when there is less demand for power, as well as fluctuations related to production.

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The total of 134 hours across Denmark in which customers receive a discount due to the negative ‘raw’ energy price is a record for a single month, Norlys said.

“We know that many of our customers follow electricity prices closely and the trend in May also underlines that there is a very good reason for this,” Norlys director for energy sales Mads Brøgger said in the statement.

“It’s good for your wallet and the green transition alike if you can plan your consumption for the hours in which there is a lot of sun and wind, making the electricity price low,” he said.

READ ALSO: How an app function can help cut your Danish electricity bill

May’s high frequency of negative base electricity rates can be attributed to the pleasant spring weather, which provided both wind and sun to the energy system in Denmark.

Meanwhile, Denmark’s electricity infrastructure has become more closely connected to other parts of Europe, notably Germany and The Netherlands. Both countries have increased their solar power capacity in recent years.

“It benefits us to have many sunshine hours, as was the case in May. Meanwhile, energy consumption was low in May because it was warm enough not to need electricity for heating, but not hot enough to need it for cooling. So there was a sweet spot in many ways,” Brøgger said.

The trend of low electricity prices has so far continued into June, with negative base rates occurring on Sunday for a number of hours in both the eastern and western parts of the country.

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