Europe's Energy Winter: Is the Continent Ready?
Gas storage is below average, renewable additions are record-breaking, and nobody quite agrees on what that means.
Three winters after the Russian gas cut-off, European energy infrastructure looks dramatically different. LNG terminals that did not exist in 2021 now account for 40% of European gas imports. Renewable capacity has expanded faster than any decade since the 1970s energy crisis. Industrial demand has structurally declined — partly through efficiency, partly through deindustrialisation.
The storage problem
Gas storage across the EU stood at 58% at the start of March 2026 — well below the five-year seasonal average of 71% at this point in the year. A cold spring could draw down reserves faster than summer injection can replenish them. The risk is not a crisis on the scale of 2022; it is a winter of high prices and constrained industrial supply.
Who bears the cost
The distributional politics of the energy transition remain unresolved. Industrial electricity prices in Germany are running at three times the pre-crisis level. Energy-intensive manufacturers continue to relocate production outside the EU. The constituencies that bear the costs of the transition — industrial workers, rural households, energy-intensive regions — are increasingly expressing that discontent through the ballot box.