Natural gas is indispensable above all for industry and industrial applications. Compared to 2010 (34 percent), the share of natural gas in industry and industrial power plants rose to 36 percent in 2020, which shows that the demand for natural gas has been at a consistently high level for years. Industry thus has the greatest demand for natural gas in Germany.
The industrial use of natural gas is diverse. For example, natural gas can be used in the chemical industry as an energy source and raw material, for example in the production of ammonia. Paper production requires a lot of heat and electricity. Both can be generated by state-of-the-art combined heat and power plants with a gas turbine. Natural gas is also used in food production and processing, for example in meat and sausage production. Here, natural gas is used, among other things, as a fuel for modern gas turbines to generate the energy required for the production halls. In addition to sand, potash, lime and soda, glass production also requires a very high temperature that can be precisely regulated. Natural gas is very well suited for this, as it is a precise and efficient supplier of heat. In the automotive industry, natural gas is also used as a fuel for industrial furnaces, for example, to heat steel sheets at very high temperatures before they are formed and cooled.
You can find out more about the versatile and flexible use of natural gas in industry in our factsheet:
Natural gas in industry (PDF)
