The Federal Council has approved the new heating costs ordinance with a minimal change.
In future, newly installed heating cost meters will have to be remotely readable, and existing devices will have to be upgraded or replaced by the end of 2026.
The project was inevitable, because Germany is only implementing an EU requirement.
But it also makes sense: The annual drama that you wait for hours for the reader or he stands in front of closed doors will end with it.
Timely measurement data are also important so that the energy transition can succeed.
Functioning digital heating monitoring can also save energy in many cases.
The manufacturers promise 10 to 20 percent and more.
Hopefully you’ll be right.
The unnecessarily high costs remain extremely annoying: For example, anyone who pays 102 euros a year for the rent of the heat meter, the water meter and the radio interface in the Rhine-Main area will be ripped off.
For the actual reading, an additional 44 euros per year are due.
A major problem with this is that the heating cost readers negotiate their prices with the landlord or manager, who have no real incentive to vigorously fight for the price because they can almost always pass the costs on to the tenants.
The German Tenants' Association is right to fear that consumers will soon have to pay more than they save on energy costs.