FRANKFURT, July 1 (Reuters) - Electricity demand in Germany has stagnated at levels seen before the coronavirus crisis, lately helped by economic recovery but still tied to the direction of the pandemic and vaccine availability, Team Consult advisory said on Thursday.

Citing research for the first half of the year, the company said that power demand in Europe's leading power market in early 2021 had trailed that a year earlier but that since March, there had been no additional demand loss traceable to the virus.

"An optimistic scenario will create additional consumption of 4 terawatt hours (TWh) up to September. A pessimistic scenario envisages small demand losses amid a normalisation of usage in the second half," it said.

Net German power consumption last year was down 4.6% at 488 TWh after accounting for imports and exports, storage movements and grid losses, data from utility group BDEW showed.

The Team Consult research was published on a day European power prices rallied, reflecting strong markets for gas, coal, oil and policy-driven carbon emission permits.

Team Consult noted macro-economic analysis showing that Germany's manufacturing activity had held up strongly during the pandemic, almost undisturbed by lockdowns, helped by generous state support measures.

"The accelerating economy will continue to hold up demand for commodities," it predicted.

But it noted economic risks from a shortage of some raw materials and key components such as semi-conductors.

Team Consult also noted that Germany's gas storage levels were at 10-year lows.

This comes at a time of rising demand to fuel gas-to-power plants that are increasingly replacing coal-burning one, as well as from other sectors using gas in their processes. read more

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