The Federal Network Agency fears a total failure of Russian gas supplies and is calling for greater efforts to save energy.

The question is whether the upcoming regular maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline "will become a longer-lasting political maintenance," said network agency boss Klaus Müller to the newspapers of the Funke media group on Saturday.

If the gas flow from Russia is "politically motivated to be lowered for a longer period of time, we have to talk more seriously about savings".

The twelve weeks before the start of the heating season must be used to make preparations, warned Müller.

He appealed to all house and apartment owners to have their gas condensing boilers and radiators checked quickly and adjusted efficiently.

"Maintenance can reduce gas consumption by ten to 15 percent," said the head of the agency.

"It has to happen now and not just in the fall."

In order to overcome bottlenecks in the craftsmen's appointments, Müller called on all craftsmen to concentrate on heating and hot water supply.

"The crisis situation relates to gas - not to electricity"

At the same time, Müller warned against using the wrong accents when saving energy.

"The crisis situation relates to gas - and not to electricity," he said.

Germany is not facing a power shortage.

“We also have no shortage of petrol and oil.

It's all available.

I advocate focusing the gaze on gas.”

On June 23, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) declared the second crisis level in the gas emergency plan, the so-called alarm level, because of the throttled Russian deliveries.

Müller explained to the Funke newspapers who possible gas rationing could affect.

In a gas emergency, "we cannot classify every operation as systemically important," he said.

“We have to be very careful in critical areas such as parts of the food and pharmaceutical industries.

On the other hand, products and offers that fall into the leisure and well-being area would be of secondary importance.

Swimming pools are probably not in the critical area, as is the production of chocolate chip cookies.”

At the same time, Müller emphasized that the network agency sees “no scenario in which no more gas comes to Germany”.

Germany can be supplied from Norway and the Netherlands, among others.

Meanwhile, the Federal Consumer Association (vzbv) warned against passing on the drastic gas price increases directly to consumers and called for changes in the law.

"For many people, the price increases can hardly be shouldered," said the head of the energy and building team at vzbv, Thomas Engelke, of the Düsseldorf "Rheinische Post" on Saturday.

Paragraph 24 of the Energy Security Act urgently needs to be revised by the federal government.

"Because without changes, the energy providers could pass on the expensive exchange gas prices 1:1 to private households when the Federal Network Agency declares a gas shortage.

The extremely high gas price overwhelms millions of households.”