Europe has record gas stocks for this winter — but consumers still face historically higher bills
A worker heats the seal of a joint between two segments of pipe during construction of a section of an interconnector gas pipeline, linking the gas networks of Bulgaria and Serbia, on the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria, on Friday, Feb.24, 2023. Bulgaria has begun work on a new pipeline to neighboring Serbia that will enable gas supplies from other countries to reduce dependence on Russian flows. Photographer: Oliver Bunic/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A feared European winter gas shortage has yet to materialize for the second year in a row — but consumers are set to stay stuck paying significantly higher rates than they used to.
A crisis situation was averted last winter, following a scramble to find new suppliers, reopen old storage facilities and roll out initiatives to reduce consumption in some energy-intensive areas, as flows from Russia dried up in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
According to research published by Moody’s this month, the EU had record high gas stocks of around 97.5% at the end November 2023, meaning both very low risk of energy shortages this winter and a strong position for the next cold season, analysts found.
“Europe’s improved energy reserves going into this winter are the result of the effectiveness of government actions on the supply and demand side, and consistent energy savings by both households and companies,” the Moody’s report stated, citing greater supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2023, a higher availability of nuclear and hydropower plants and a mild winter as improving the situation.
Lower consumption has also been helped by economic stagnation in the continent, the report said.
Moody’s expects gas storage to be higher than previously anticipated at 55% at the end of March 2024.
Household and business bills
Yet, “European gas prices will remain high and volatile,” the report finds.
Energy has been one of the strongest forces pulling down inflation in recent months, after being a chief driver in hikes in consumer prices suffered in the immediate wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Annual headline inflation was 2.4% in November in the euro zone, with energy showing disinflation of 11.5% year-on-year, even as the extent of price rises simply moderated in all other sectors.
In the U.K., gas price inflation has plunged by 31% in the year to November, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.
But all that is a fall off the back of a very large spike.
Using Factset data, Moody’s found that European gas prices are well above their 2015-2019 average — and sees them remaining above this level until at least 2031. In 2020 and 2021, prices were below the average.
“The tariffs paid by households and industries are still historically very high,” James Waddell, head of European gas and global LNG at Energy Aspects, told CNBC by email.
“Movements in these prices generally follow movements in the wholesale gas market with a lag of several months, because of supplier hedging. So the fall in European wholesale gas prices from last year has not fully been passed through yet.”
Wholesale prices are overall around four times lower than they averaged over 2022, but still more than double what they were historically, Waddell said.
“This means that there are still price pressures on households and industries and in the case of the latter, increasingly we see interest in these firms relocating production outside of Europe.”
He also said that, despite healthy supply in the short term, concerns remain about the ability for European gas storage capacity to set itself up for the years ahead, since “stocks can be drawn down quickly in the event of cold weather.” That can also be the case if an increase in Asian demand pulls a lot of LNG away from Europe, he said.
Moody’s says gas prices will stay volatile primarily because of “increased geopolitical risks, which reflect their intrinsic vulnerability to supply disruptions.”
It cites various downside risks to its gas market outlook, including a further cut in Russian pipeline supply and episodes of supply disruption, as seen in the strikes at Australian LNG facilities earlier this year.
Additional volatility has arisen following the Israel-Hamas war, which has lifted risk premiums and driven spot gas prices higher despite Europe’s relative distance from the conflict, researchers say.
According to Moody’s, “Under the unlikely adverse scenario where the conflict could escalate to the broader region with the direct involvement of Iran, European gas prices could spike to similar levels seen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This scenario would hurt economic activity and add further challenges for energy-intensive sectors.”
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about some of the factors that are convincing Electrek readers to add home solar power systems to their homes. After receiving over a thousand responses, here’s what you told us.
Our last survey focused on the loss of the 30% federal home solar tax credit that’s set to expire at the end of this year. One of the commenters expressed frustration with the question, saying that – tax credit or no – there were still plenty of other good reasons to go solar.
When our readers share their great ideas with us, we listen, and our most recent survey asked, “The federal solar tax credit ends after December 31st, but there are still plenty of reasons to go solar. What’s YOUR reason?”
Why YOU choose solar
Perhaps the most surprising result of this survey is that, with just 32.6% of the votes, “Lowering my monthly utility bills” wasn’t the biggest overall reason for people choosing to go solar. That result proving, if nothing else, that Electrek readers might be willing to spend a little more to do something positive for their environment and their community.
“Energy independence and less reliance on the grid” was the top reason readers would add a solar system to their homes, with over 25% reporting that they were convinced about the value of solar because, “It’s the right thing to do, climate-wise.”
The final surprising result was that just 2.33% of respondents – just 25 Electrek readers – said that the improved resale value of home solar was your primary decision-driver.
Surprising, perhaps, not because of the solar panels themselves, but because it really is a buyers’ market these days, especially in sun-rich markets like Texas and Florida, which have flipped the script in recent months, posting huge inventory numbers and plunging real estate prices throughout the 2025 hurricane season.
“With a rate of 6.5% for a $1 million loan, the [monthly] payment is now significantly more than it was two years ago—$6,300 versus $4,200,” according to Ron Shuffield, the Miami-based president and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices EWM Realty. “When we have this conversation with our sellers, they say, ‘Well, why can’t I get what my neighbor got two or three years ago?’ And then we say, ‘Well, because your buyer does not have the same amount of money.’”
In that context, I’d expect sellers would at least try to differentiate their properties with features like home solar and battery energy storage. But, then again, what do I know? You guys know stuff – let us know what you make of this little look into the minds of your fellow readers and what conclusions you’d draw in the comments.
Original content from Electrek.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive officer of Anthropic, at the World Economic Forum in 2025.
Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is doing all it can to keep pace with larger rival OpenAI, which is spending money at a historic pace with backing from Microsoft and Nvidia. Of late, Anthropic has been facing an equally daunting antagonist: the U.S. government.
David Sacks, the venture capitalist serving as President Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, has been publicly criticizing Anthropic for what he’s called a campaign by the company to support “the Left’s vision of AI regulation.”
After Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark, AI startup’s head of policy, wrote an essay this week titled “Technological Optimism and Appropriate Fear,” Sacks lashed out against the company on X.
“Anthropic is running a sophisticated regulatory capture strategy based on fear-mongering,” Sacks wrote on Tuesday.
OpenAI, meanwhile, has established itself as a partner to the White House since the very beginning of the second Trump administration. On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, Trump announced a joint venture called Stargate with OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank to invest billions of dollars in U.S. AI infrastructure.
Sacks’ criticism of Anthropic hits on the company’s very foundation and its original reason for being. Siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in late 2020 and started Anthropic with a mission to build safer AI. OpenAI had started as a nonprofit lab in 2015, but was rapidly moving towards commercialization, with hefty funding from Microsoft.
Now they’re the two most highly valued private AI companies in the country, with OpenAI commanding a $500 billion valuation and Anthropic capturing a valuation of $183 billion. OpenAI leads the consumer AI market with its ChatGPT and Sora apps, while Anthropic’s Claude models are particularly popular in the enterprise.
When it comes to regulation, the companies have very different views. OpenAI has lobbied for fewer guardrails, while Anthropic has opposed part of the Trump administration’s effort to limit protections.
Anthropic has repeatedly pushed back against efforts by the federal government to preempt state-level regulation of AI, most notably a Trump-backed provision that would have blocked such rules for 10 years.
That proposal, part of the draft “Big Beautiful Bill,” was ultimately abandoned. Anthropic later endorsed California’s SB 53, which would require transparency and safety disclosures from AI companies, effectively going in the opposite direction from the administration’s approach.
“SB 53’s transparency requirements will have an important impact on frontier AI safety,” Anthropic wrote in a blog post on Sept. 8. “Without it, labs with increasingly powerful models could face growing incentives to dial back their own safety and disclosure programs in order to compete.”
Anthropic didn’t provide a comment for this story. Sacks didn’t respond to a request for comment.
U.S. President Donald Trump sits next to Crypto czar David Sacks at the White House Crypto Summit at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 7, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
For Sacks, the priority in AI is to innovate as fast as possible to make sure the U.S. doesn’t lose to China.
“The U.S. is currently in an AI race, and our chief global competition is China,” Sacks said in an onstage interview at Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco this week. “They’re the only other country that has the talent, the resources, and the technology expertise to basically beat us in AI.”
But Sacks has adamantly denied that he’s trying to take down Anthropic in the process of lifting up U.S. AI.
In a post on X on Thursday, Sacks contested a Bloomberg story that linked his comments to growing federal scrutiny of Anthropic.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he wrote. “Just a couple of months ago, the White House approved Anthropic’s Claude app to be offered to all branches of government through the GSA App Store.”
Rather, Sacks claimed that Anthropic has cast itself as a political underdog, positioning its leadership as principled defenders of public safety while pursuing a public campaign that frames any pushback as partisan targeting.
“It has been Anthropic’s government affairs and media strategy to position itself consistently as a foe of the Trump administration,” Sacks said. “But don’t whine to the media that you’re being ‘targeted’ when all we’ve done is articulate a policy disagreement.”
Sacks pointed to several examples of what he sees as adversarial actions. He referenced Dario Amodei’s comparison of Trump to a “feudal warlord” during the 2024 election. Amodei publicly supported Kamala Harris’ campaign for president.
Sacks also referenced op-eds the company ran opposing key parts of the Trump administration’s AI policy agenda, including its proposed moratorium on state-level regulation and elements of its Middle East and chip export strategy. Anthropic also hired senior Biden-era officials to lead its government relations team, Sacks noted.
The AI czar took particular umbrage to Clark’s essay and his warnings about the potentially transformative and destabilizing power of AI.
“My own experience is that as these AI systems get smarter and smarter, they develop more and more complicated goals. When these goals aren’t absolutely aligned with both our preferences and the right context, the AI systems will behave strangely,” Clark wrote. “Another reason for my fear is I can see a path to these systems starting to design their successors, albeit in a very early form.”
Sacks said such “fear-mongering” is holding back innovation.
“It is principally responsible for the state regulatory frenzy that is damaging the startup ecosystem,” Sacks wrote on X.
Anthropic has also stayed away from actions that many other tech companies have taken explicitly to appease Trump.
Leaders from Meta, OpenAI, and Nvidia have courted Trump and his allies, attending White House dinners, committing tens of billions of dollars to U.S. infrastructure projects, and softening their public postures. Amodei wasn’t invited to a recent White House dinner involving numerous industry leaders, the company confirmed to The Information.
Still, Anthropic continues to hold major federal contracts, including a $200 million deal with the Department of Defense and access to federal agencies through the General Services Administration. It also recently formed a national security advisory council to align its work with U.S. interests, and began offering a version of its Claude model to government customers for $1 per year.
But Sacks isn’t the only influential Republican tech investor voicing his critique of the company.
Keith Rabois, whose husband works in the Trump administration, waded into the mix this week.
“If Anthropic actually believed their rhetoric about safety, they can always shut down the company,” Rabois wrote on X. “And lobby then.”
Italian logistics specialist Fratelli Foppiani Trasporti has become one of the first operators to deploy the new MAN eTGX electric trucks, taking delivery of a 4×2 semi tractor and a new, 6×2-4 rigid truck packing absolutely MASSIVE battery packs that are ready to get to work.
The Italian shipping firm ordered its MAN units back in 2023, making these among the first regular-production electric trucks from the German truck brand to be delivered to customers. The trucks seem to have been worth the wait, too – the 6×2-4 rigid unit packs a whopping 445 kWh modular battery pack while the 4×2 semi arrived with a massive 534 kWh pack, along with MAN SafeStop Assist, MAN OptiView digital mirrors, GM cab, regenerative braking system, TipMatic 4 semiauto transmission, and MAN Digital Services packages.
Those batteries will give the eTGX trucks more than enough range to handle Fratelli Foppiani’s existing 4×2 routes, which go primarily from Corsico (Milan), with routes including Rozzano, Voghera and Brescia. The rigid truck will operate from Busto Arsizio (Varese), serving areas across Milan and Bergamo, Italy.
“This delivery represents a fundamental step forward for sustainable transport in Italy,” said Marc Martinez, Managing Director MAN Truck & Bus Italia. “We are proud to have achieved it together with a long-standing partner such as Fratelli Foppiani, which has once again demonstrated vision and courage.”
The trucks were delivered during a ceremony at the company’s Corsico headquarters this month, coinciding with the company’s 65th anniversary.
Electrek’s Take
MAN Trucks’ fleet advisors believe that, in most cases, an electric semi will pay for itself in about three years, thanks in part to Europe’s much higher diesel fuel prices compared to the US (about $6.80/gal compared to $3.70 here, last time I checked).
Doing that complicated fleet assessment math for me, while giving me one of the best headlines in the industry, is just one more reason I love these guys.
SOURCE | IMAGES: MAN Truck & Bus Italia.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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