The federal government has to save – and citizens have to pay more. Electricity in particular is becoming significantly more expensive. What can we expect now?
Electricity costs will rise even more sharply at the turn of the year than originally expected. There are mutliple reasons for this. You can find out what these are and what additional costs you have to expect in individual cases here.
Removal of state subsidies
Until recently, the federal government subsidized electricity. It paid a subsidy of 5.5 billion euros towards network fees. This will no longer apply from 2024.
Meanwhile, the transmission system operators 50Hertz, Amprion, Tennet and Transnet have announced that they will double their network fees from 2024. So from 3.12 cents/kilowatt hour (kWh) to 6.34 cents/kWh. The companies justify the drastic price increase with price increases on the energy markets. Since the government no longer reimburses network fees, consumers now have to bear the costs.
Higher CO2 pricing
Another reason is the CO2 taxes, which, among other things, power plant operators have to pay for the production of energy from fossil sources such as crude oil or natural gas. It has been known for some time that these will increase from 2024. But now it has been announced that the taxes will be significantly higher than planned: instead of 40 euros per ton of CO2, they will now be 45 euros per ton of CO2.
Overall, the President of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) expects electricity bills to rise by 10 to 20 percent. However, this is about the commercial electricity price. And this tends to be around 5 cents/kWh higher than the private electricity price. The tariffs also differ in terms of taxation. In some cases, only 20 percent taxes are due for commercial electricity. For private electricity, the taxes amount to almost 27 percent. As a result, the cost increase for private electricity could also be higher.
Electricity price brake expires
Another indicator that energy will become more expensive from 2024 is the early end to the electricity price brake. Instead of until March 2024, it is now only valid until December 31, 2023. From then on, consumers will have to pay the full electricity price again – and not a maximum of 40 cents/kWh, as the electricity price brake had previously provided for.
Aren’t energy costs just falling?
But doesn’t it mean that electricity prices are currently as low as they were last in 2021? So do consumers really have to expect high energy costs? Yes, according to a report in the “Handelsblatt”. The business newspaper reports that electricity prices are not expected to fall permanently. “In our opinion, it will likely result in a doubling of gas and electricity tariffs,” said Ingbert Liebing, managing director of the Association of Municipal Companies (VKU) in the “Handelsblatt”.
Is it worth changing provider?
When electricity costs rise, people are often advised to switch providers and get a cheaper tariff. In most cases this is also a good and money-saving option. But when it comes to network fees, things look a little different. Because all electricity suppliers impose this on their customers. So it doesn’t matter whether you change provider: everything will be more expensive from 2024 onwards. We have summarized for you in this guide article whether consumers can change their provider early due to the increased network fees from 2024 and thus the tariff increase.
If you want to avoid additional financial burden in the following year due to electricity prices, you have to use significantly less energy. More precisely: up to 20 percent less.
