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According to information from the comparison portals Check24 and Verivox, the electricity prices in the basic tariff have climbed to a new historical high.
At 33.77 cents per kilowatt hour, the basic tariff is more expensive than ever before.
More than half of the price consists of government-prescribed taxes, duties and levies.
Compared to January last year, the electricity costs have risen by around four percent, reports Verivox: "A three-person household with an annual consumption of 4,000 kilowatt hours has higher electricity costs of around 50 euros per year."
At first glance, the rise in consumer prices is surprising.
After all, the electricity consumption of the national economy fell sharply in the wake of the Corona crisis.
The falling demand had put the wholesale price on the European Energy Exchange (EEX) under great pressure.
The expansion of renewable energies is to be accelerated
The Bundestag passed the reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act on Thursday.
The changes are intended to accelerate the expansion of electricity from wind and solar energy.
Source: WELT / Eybe Ahlers
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But this relief has not reached many households.
On the contrary: "When it comes to electricity prices, Germany is still the world leader," says Thorsten Storck, energy expert at Verivox.
The aid regime for promoting green electricity producers is partly responsible for this.
According to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), they are entitled to a fixed remuneration for green electricity, regardless of the actual value of the kilowatt hours.
If the value of the electricity on the energy exchange falls, the higher the compensation payments must be made to the green electricity producers.
For the consumer, whose electricity demand tends to increase in lockdown and home office, the cost per kilowatt hour remains the same.
With a green electricity share of around 45 percent, the sums involved are considerable.
Last year, the network operators had to pay out the record sum of 30.8 billion euros to the green electricity producers to compensate them for the drop in electricity prices on the exchange.
The sum is added to the bill of all consumers as the "EEG levy".
Overall, the cost of the green electricity subsidy rose by a further 6.4 billion euros over the course of a year, from around 24 billion euros most recently.
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Due to the corona-related drop in electricity prices on the exchange, the EEG surcharge would have jumped suddenly from 6.75 to around 9.6 cents per kilowatt this year.
But the federal government has capped the surcharge to 6.5 cents - also in order not to make green electricity too unattractive in terms of price for use in transport.
What the electricity consumer therefore spends less in the EEG surcharge, he pays more as a tax citizen: A total of eleven billion euros of the green electricity subsidies will be paid directly from federal tax revenue for the first time this year and next.
Source: WORLD infographic
The EEG surcharge is therefore partly responsible for the current level of electricity prices, but no longer for the recent increase.
The amount of the EEG surcharge should also decrease further in the coming years, because more and more systems are coming to the end of their 20-year funding period and the funding costs for new wind power and solar systems are significantly lower.
Since 2018, project planners of green electricity systems have had to apply for building licenses in an auction process.
This has now drastically reduced the amount of new subsidies under the EEG.
Rather, the new cost driver on consumers' electricity bills is network charges.
In the course of the energy transition, network operators have to build reserve power plants and keep them operational, compensate market participants for line bottlenecks and erect thousands of kilometers of extra-high voltage lines.
The West German power grid operator Amprion alone has just doubled its investment volume for the next ten years to 24 billion euros.
"The increased network usage charges and the increase in VAT have led to this noticeable burden," says Lasse Schmid, Managing Director Energy at Check24: "The minimal reduction in the EEG surcharge cannot compensate for that."
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An analysis by Verivox had already shown last year that Germans pay by far the highest electricity prices in the world.
While the average bill was 32 cents per kilowatt hour in Germany, the international average was 12.22 cents.
Little has changed in these conditions in the past few months.
In other industrialized countries, too, electricity is sometimes significantly cheaper than in Germany, reports Verivox, referring to calculations by the service provider Global Petrol Prices and market data from the World Bank.
The kilowatt hour in the USA cost only half on average, around 13 cents.
"Even if the different price levels between the countries are taken into account, Germany ranks 16th in the worldwide, purchasing power-adjusted electricity price comparison and is thus the most expensive G-20 country," says Verivox.
"Italy and Turkey follow at a distance."
The Federal Association of German Energy and Water Management (BDEW) points out that the price comparison only refers to the basic supply tariffs of the suppliers.
By switching to a different tariff or to a different supplier, consumers can often save hundreds of euros.
"Electricity prices are competitive prices, and competition on the electricity market is very intense," explained a spokesman for the BDEW: "According to the Federal Network Agency, an average of 132 electricity providers compete for the favor of consumers in each network area."
"The basic supplier provides energy immediately when moving or moving into a new apartment," explained the BDEW spokesman.
Even if, for example, an electricity or gas supplier files for bankruptcy, the basic supplier must automatically step in.
"For this reason, the utilities must always procure energy flexibly for the basic supply without being able to plan the exact purchase quantities." This contributes to higher procurement costs for the basic supply.