[throwaways85989]

The disaster is already preprogrammed. Lots of germans bought electric heaters to heat flats through the winter, as the heat provided by the house central heating will be reduced. Which will result in large increases of base load on the network, which already will be under strain.

Which means rolling black outs as soon as it gets cold. Perma-black outs if the people do not see reasons and unplug their heaters. No solution has been proposed for this. The clever ones went for wood for heating.

Still preferable to shiver one winter through, then have it warm in putins prison.

[RandomLensman]

It is not clear at all that people will behave that way. The buying of electric heaters for now just reflects huge uncertainty about any sources of heat.

[timbit42]

What percentage of German homes use resistive heating? If they switch to heat pumps with a COP of at least 4, every heat pump will free up enough electricity to run 3 more heat pumps. The problem is importing enough heat pumps and having the government subsidize the purchase and installation for those who can't afford it. Perhaps NATO countries would sell their stocks of heat pumps to Germany if manufacturers don't have enough of them.

[dreinhardt]

People also bought toilet paper against covid.