Fearing that Russia could cut off natural gas supplies, the head of Germany's energy agency on Saturday urged residents to conserve energy and prepare for winter, especially critical infrastructure businesses..

Federal Grid Agency President Klaus Muller urged home and apartment owners to check and adjust their gas boilers and radiators to maximize their efficiency.

“Maintenance can reduce gas consumption by 10-15%,” he said in an interview with Funke Mediengruppe, a German newspaper and magazine publisher, AP reported..

Mueller said residents and property owners should have 12 weeks to prepare before the cold weather hits.. In particular, he recommended lowering the temperature in some rooms..

Also, the German government recommended that enterprises purchase emergency power generators in order to avoid a " Backup current should be enough for 72 hours.

The appeal comes after Russia cut gas supplies to Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia earlier this month as European Union countries struggle to fill storage facilities with fuel used to generate electricity, energy and home heating during the winter.. Russian state energy company Gazprom has blamed a technical problem on cutting natural gas supplies through Nord Stream 1, a pipeline that runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany..

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The company said equipment repaired in Canada was stuck there due to Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine..

German leaders dismissed this explanation and called the cuts a political move in response to European Union sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine..

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, who is also Germany's economy and climate minister in charge of energy, has warned that a " According to him, last summer, work led to the closure of Nord Stream 1 for about 10 days..

The question is whether the upcoming regular maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline will turn into a "

If the flow of gas from Russia "

In the event of a gas cut, private households would be particularly protected, as would hospitals or nursing homes, Muller said..

“I can promise that we will do everything possible to ensure that private households are not left without gas,” he said, adding: “We have learned from the coronavirus crisis that we should not make promises if we are not completely sure that we can make them.”.

He said his agency "

Also on Saturday, German chemical company Henkel said it was considering encouraging its employees to work from home during the winter in response to possible supply shortages..

“Then we could significantly reduce the temperature in the offices while our employees could heat their homes as usual,” Henkel CEO Carsten Knobel told the daily Rheinische Post..

Earlier this month, Habek activated the second phase of Germany's three-phase emergency plan for natural gas supplies, warning that Europe's largest economy was facing a "