In the exciting presentations, the challenges, namely the sharp rise in tariffs for the use of natural gas networks and the resulting significantly higher costs for industry, electricity generation and also household customers, were analysed and the consequences derived from this were presented. On the one hand, the sharp increases in tariffs are the result of the steady decline in natural gas consumption in Austria due to

• the war against Ukraine and the resulting significantly higher energy prices - primarily natural gas,
• the increased use of renewables in electricity generation, resulting in less demand for natural gas for electricity generation,
• efficiency improvements in the energy sector - both in industry and in households,
• thermal refurbishment of buildings,
• installation of heat pumps and wood pellet heating systems instead of gas boilers,
• the current weak economy

on the other hand, the cancellation of transit to Italy. In other words, the number of cost units - i.e. the amount of energy consumed (and in some cases the power required) - is falling sharply, while the annual costs (OPEX and capital costs) are rising. This "toxic" mix leads to sharply rising tariffs.

Now that Austria has set itself the goal of becoming climate-neutral by 2040, the phase-out of fossil fuels is being accelerated and the gas networks in the natural gas sector are to be partially decommissioned. In terms of the timeline, this is primarily at grid level 3 (urban area and local grid supply) as the long-distance pipelines will continue to be used for transit (neighbouring countries only want to achieve climate neutrality at a later date) and will then be partially converted into hydrogen transport grids - including the necessary adaptations and the resulting investment requirements. Reference was correctly made to the natural gas network transformation and decommissioning requirements. Knowing that the terms gas network dismantling and gas network decommissioning are very often used synonymously, there is clarity among experts regarding the €13-20 billion difference (40,000 km long network at network level 3) between gas network dismantling and gas network decommissioning - to the disadvantage of gas network dismantling. In the case of gas network decommissioning, the pipelines would be excavated and removed, whereas in the case of gas network decommissioning, the natural gas pipelines would "merely" be flushed with nitrogen, filled and sealed - thus leaving most of them in the ground.

The described "toxic" mixture of rising costs and the significantly decreasing number of cost bearers would ultimately lead to a "handful" of end customers bearing the entire costs of the gas network in 2039/2040 - i.e. having to pay "astronomically" high tariffs. The representative of the AK spoke of an increase in tariffs by a factor of 13 by 2039. These high tariffs would be difficult or even impossible for Austria as an industrial location to bear - as is the case in Germany and other EU Member States. For this reason, solutions are being desperately sought - so far without convincing results. The planned conversion of natural gas grids into hydrogen transport grids is to take place at transmission level and grid level 1, as there will not be enough green hydrogen available in time for households and businesses - i.e. grid level 3 customers - and certainly not at an affordable price.

In addition, it must be taken into account that the capacity of the power lines will have to be greatly increased in parallel, for example due to the increased use of heat pumps, electrolysers, feed-in of renewables, etc., which means that very high investments are also required in this direction. The use of biomethane can help to some extent, but the production of biomethane in centralised plants should be considered in this direction, as otherwise the investments for the connection lines and the resulting annual costs would be very high or existing, far oversized pipelines - and the resulting costs - would be used over long distances and these pipelines could therefore not be decommissioned. If one assumes that there are also sectors that cannot be decarbonised even by using green hydrogen, such as waste incineration plants, cement production, etc., and that a CO2 transport network - including capture facilities and (intermediate) storage options - is therefore required, then one can see that Austria - as well as the other EU MS - will have to make very high investments. This is also due to the fact that the NATO countries will dramatically increase their investments in national defence (Germany is to increase the share of national defence in GDP from 2% to > 3%. Every percentage point increase in Germany results in costs of €45 billion. If Austria does not want to and cannot play free rider, every percentage point increase in the share of national defence in GDP in Austria would amount to around € 4.5 billion - this in times of tight state coffers. The saying "Good advice is expensive" is rather harmless here and should be replaced by "Good advice is very, very expensive and urgently needed".