More business closures by energy companies, but more stable, albeit high, prices for electricity and gas - that's what Björn Vortisch, Managing Director of the Enexion Group from Schwalbach am Taunus, sees coming in the next few months.

His company has been offering energy management for large and medium-sized companies for more than twenty years. Enexion procures electricity and gas for them on the international markets, handles applications for subsidies and the complicated legal procedures on the German energy market.

Companies such as Porsche, Lindt and large Frankfurt data centers use the service, and the overview of the energy market is correspondingly good.

Inga Janovic

Editor in the regional section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and responsible editor of the business magazine Metropol.

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Since the outbreak of war in the Ukraine, it seems to have gone completely crazy. Since then, the prices for electricity and gas on the wholesale markets have fluctuated by up to 200 euros per megawatt hour in just one day - and even in the cheaper moments they were unusually high.

What frightens private individuals and entrepreneurs cannot upset Vortisch.

The companies for which Enexion works are largely independent of the daily prices on the electricity exchanges, the so-called spot market, because the required amounts of electricity are procured for them over the long term at prices fixed in advance.

These tariffs still apply even if customers who come later have to pay much more.

"We always plan with risks and diversify them, we don't just buy the energy quantities for our customers from one wholesaler and not everything at a certain point in time," explains Vortisch.

This procedure does not mean that Enexion can always procure the energy at the lowest prices, but overall the purchase is cheaper and protected from extreme fluctuations, short price reductions are quickly exploited.

Gas embargo would have massive consequences

Even in the past few weeks, when the markets made wild price jumps, politicians ennobled renewable energies to freedom energies and many tried to calculate whether and when the Federal Republic could do without oil and gas from Russia, the Enexion buyers have long-term supply contracts for their customers on the wholesale markets completed.

According to Vortisch at lower prices again.

Despite the massive disruptions, hardly anyone on the energy exchanges believes that the current crisis will turn into a long-term high-price phase, says Vortisch.

"In the past we have already seen enough crises and wars that affected the wholesale markets in this way," says Vortisch.

So far, however, the furor has never lasted longer than a few weeks or months.

This applies to the current situation, in which all market instruments are still available to participants.

A completely different situation would be a so-called gas shortage, which could arise if Germany decided to stop importing Russian gas.

Then the state would decide who can be supplied with what quantities, and the economy could no longer refer to the previously concluded supply contracts.

Vortisch does not want to completely rule out such a step and advises industrial customers to follow the regulatory discussion and contact their network operators at an early stage.

For some, the high prices could mean the end

But even if it doesn't come to that and the markets calm down, as the energy manager expects, the time until then could be too long for some.

Companies that have to buy electricity or gas at current prices only have one choice: "Pay or close." In energy-intensive sectors such as aluminum production, companies have already taken this step.

Your business is no longer profitable.

According to Vortisch, it is mainly medium-sized companies whose economic plans have gotten out of joint with the world.

They are not big enough to maintain their own energy management departments.

But he sees another group in which not all can cope with the high prices: energy suppliers.

More than forty electricity and gas suppliers have already had to shut down operations in 2021.

The expert is convinced.

“Retailers of all shapes and sizes will continue to go bankrupt.” The experts at Enexion had expected the rise in prices on the raw materials markets for a long time.

"We would have seen energy prices double even without the war in Ukraine," Vortisch is certain.