Expensive energy: Households pay twice as much for gas as in the previous year

Although the increased energy prices are arriving with a delay, they are increasingly reaching end customers.

According to a new calculation, the prices for electricity and gas have risen even more sharply compared to January and even more so compared to previous years.

According to an analysis by the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), an average household now pays almost twice as much for natural gas as last year and for electricity around 15 percent more.

Jan Hauser

Editor in Business.

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The energy suppliers usually have long-term contracts for the majority of their expected energy needs.

Due to the economic upswing in the world after the Corona dip, the demand for energy increased significantly last year.

As a result, the demand for gas also increased, and with it the price.

With the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, Germany and other countries are now trying to reduce their energy supplies from Russia, which is also causing prices to rise.

The significant increases in energy costs are therefore only gradually reaching households.

In the near future, too, the increases in expenditure will hardly flatten out.

Procurement costs have increased significantly

Kerstin Andreae, Chair of the BDEW Executive Board, sees that the procurement costs of energy suppliers for electricity and gas have risen sharply in recent months: Since the beginning of last year, wholesale prices for electricity have quadrupled and those for gas almost quintupled.

Due to the long-term procurement strategies of the energy suppliers over several years, the price developments on the wholesale markets only reach the customers with a delay.

"However, the longer the price level remains high, the more the wholesale prices will be reflected in the tariffs and influence them in the longer term," said Andreae.

According to the new BDEW calculation, a household currently pays an average of 13.77 cents per kilowatt hour for natural gas in single-family houses with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours instead of 7.06 cents in the previous year.

In apartment buildings it is 13.26 cents instead of 6.47 cents before (annual consumption of 80,000 kilowatt hours and 13,333 kilowatt hours per apartment).

Households pay an average of 37.14 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity based on the current tariffs in the year to date, after 32.16 cents last year.

Small and medium-sized industrial customers will have to pay an average of 31.36 cents per kilowatt hour in 2022, almost 50 percent more than 21.38 cents last year.

In previous years, the state share in the price of electricity for households was still half.

But this year the taxes, duties and surcharges come to 39 percent of the total price and are therefore at the level of procurement and sales.

This is mainly due to the higher procurement costs.

A look at the composition of the prices shows that the costs for procurement and distribution for natural gas has almost tripled and for electricity has almost doubled.

In addition to this main reason for the increase, it is noticeable how much the VAT as a percentage surcharge increases the costs: For natural gas, the absolute value of 36.67 cents is almost twice as high as last year.

In addition, the CO2 price for natural gas, which is intended to tax the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and will continue to rise in the coming years, has increased slightly.

In power generation, there is also a burden from the CO2 price for fossil fuels, but this is not visible in the price calculation here.

Comparison portals are currently naming even higher electricity and gas costs for basic services.

According to Check24, utilities announced 109 increases in electricity prices for June by an average of 19 percent, which is said to affect three million households, and gas in 73 cases by an average of 61 percent, which will affect 240,000 households.

Every second apartment is heated with gas.

Lowering fizzles out

What should have reduced electricity costs is the reduction in the levy under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) from 6.5 cents to 3.723 cents this year.

But the end customer doesn't notice anything because the other components have increased so much and the total price is also higher.

The EEG surcharge will fall completely in the middle of the year, thus providing some relief.

For a consumption of 2000 kilowatt hours, this is a relief of around 89 euros including VAT.

But that is not enough for the BDEW.

"In view of the unprecedented price level on the energy markets, it is clear that the abolition of the EEG surcharge alone cannot cushion the extremely increased procurement costs," said Andreae.

She proposes reducing the electricity tax to the European minimum and the VAT on electricity and gas from 19 to 7 percent.

The climate money announced in the coalition agreement should also be promoted and supplemented by an energy cost component.

At the same time, Andreae is demanding that the government inform households about how they can save electricity and gas.