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ENERGY

How electricity prices are rising across Germany

As the year draws to an end, price comparison portals have observed huge spikes in electricity costs across Germany - though the scale of the price hikes vary across different regions.

Extension cable
An adapter and extension cable with devices plugged in. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sebastian Gollnow

According to analysis carried out by comparison portal Check24, there were at least 580 cases of price increases in the basic electricity supply at the beginning of the year, with around 7.3 million households affected.

Electricity costs increased by an average of 60 percent, the analysis found, though in some cases were much higher. In the case of the Cologne-based supplier Rheinenergie, a kilowatt hour of electricity has gone up to 55 cents – 130 percent higher than the previous price. 

Comparison portal Verifox, which conducted its own analysis, found that prices were rising by an average of 54 percent across the board. 

“The new year is beginning with a massive wave of price increases for electricity,” said Verifox energy expert Thorsten Storck.

Analysts also noted strong regional differences in the scale of the price increases, with Munich and Cologne topping the list for the most expensive electricity. 

In Munich, a kilowatt hour of energy will cost 61.9 cents from January, compared to 55 cents in Cologne.

Meanwhile, MVV Energie in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, will charge almost 45 cents per kWh for its basic supply from January onwards – instead of the previous 27 cents. The East German energy supplier EnviaM, based in Chemnitz, will charge 48.1 cents in the future – 20.1 cents more than before.

In Potsdam in Brandenburg, the region supplier is raising its electricity prices by around 21 percent to 46.5 cents per kilowatt hour.

READ ALSO: ‘It’s going to be a bleak winter’: How people in Germany are coping with the energy crisis

Why are the prices so high? 

In a statement explaining the imminent jump in prices, Rheinenergie pointed to the huge increase in their procurement costs and other overheads.

“Compared to the previous year, prices on the electricity exchanges have risen by more than 300 percent,” they explained. “At their peak they had increased more than tenfold. In addition, the grid fees are also rising.” 

The extreme spike on the markets is yet another consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent the price of natural gas soaring.

An electricity pylon near a motorway in Lower Saxony.

An electricity pylon near a motorway in Lower Saxony. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Moritz Frankenberg

Though gas isn’t the only component involved in producing electricity – much cheaper renewables also account for a decent portion of Germany’s supply – it does have a significant impact on prices. That’s because of something known the “merit order,” in which the most expensive gas-fired plant used to produce electricity is decisive in setting the cost.  

READ ALSO: Germany’s Scholz dims lights on Christmas tree amid energy squeeze

What can customers do?

How to handle the latest wave of price increases may in part depend on who your current supplier is.

According to Udo Sieverding, an energy expert at the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice centre, people using a private supplier should consider whether it would make more sense to fall back on the so-called “basic supply.” 

“Customers outside the basic supply should even consider making use of the special right of termination in case of price increases and let themselves fall into the basic supply,” he said. 

The basic supply – or Grundversorgung – is generally provided to people who don’t set up their own electricity or energy contract with another supplier. Prices are set on a regional level and used to be considered expensive, but in recent months they have generally slipped below the rates offered by private companies. 

For people already using the basic supply, the situation is a bit trickier.

“The electricity price increases at the turn of the year are in part drastic,” said Sieverding. “Unfortunately, the new customer tariffs via the intermediary portals are even higher, which means that a change of supplier won’t lead to savings in most tariff areas.”

That means it could make sense to sit tight for now and accept the higher prices, but keep an eye on any deals that could be offered in the coming months. 

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: How to save money on your German electricity bill

Will electricity stay this expensive in the future? 

Energy prices were rising dramatically even before Russia’s war on Ukraine – in part due to pandemic supply issues – and experts don’t think they’re set to drop anytime soon. 

According to analysis by Check24, a sample household with an annual consumption of 5000 kWh paid an average of 29.4 cents per kWh in November 2020. One year later, it was 31.6 cents. Currently, the average is 42.7 cents.

Apartments in Lower Saxony

A few apartments are lit up in a tower block in Lower Saxony. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Julian Stratenschulte

Electricity market expert Mirko Schlossarczyk, who works for consultancy firm Enervis, said 40 cents per kilowatt-hour was likely to be the new normal in 2023 and 2024, and that prices could even rise to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour after that. 

Although wholesale electricity prices could fall again significantly in the future, as a result of a prospective drop in gas prices and the increased expansion of renewable energies – the noticeably larger share of the end customer price would be accounted for by levies, surcharges, fees, and taxes, Schlossarczyk said.

“We will not see a return to 32 cents (the pre-war price) in the coming years simply because of the comparatively high wholesale electricity price level and the already announced increases in grid fees,” he added. 

But isn’t there supposed to be a price cap coming?

That’s right: from March 2023, the government plans to introduce a cap on electricity prices that will apply retrospectively from January.

However, this still won’t take electricity bills back to pre-war levels. Instead, 80 percent of a household’s normal electricity consumption will be capped at a price of 40 cents per kilowatt hour, while any excess over this will be billed at ordinary market prices.

That is likely to mean that households that don’t reduce their consumption by at least 20 percent still face much higher bills, and even those that do will pay an average of eight cents more for a kilowatt hour of electricity than they were in 2021. 

READ ALSO: Germany plans to cap energy prices from start of 2023

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ENERGY

In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

At one of Europe's largest chemical complexes, German group Covestro is trialling the manufacture of a key product using sugar as a base material instead of oil, as the industry seeks to reduce its carbon footprint.

In climate push, German chemical maker swaps oil for sugar

The pilot project involves producing “aniline”, a chemical used in making foams — used widely in mattresses and armchairs, as well as building insulation.

While large-scale, commercial production is probably years away, the experiment marks a small step in the chemical industry’s battle to slash carbon emissions as Earth faces a dire climate emergency.

Of the 100 million barrels of oil produced worldwide every day, “a quarter goes directly into the chemical industry,” said Walter Leitner, from Aachen University, which has been involved in the aniline project for a decade. “The chemical industry needs to be completely rebuilt.”

Plastics manufacturer Covestro — a former division of chemical giant Bayer — started trials at its complex in the western city of Leverkusen at the end
of 2023, after laboratory tests.

In a 100-square-metre (1,080-square-foot) room, aniline, a transparent fluid, is extracted from a 600-metre network of intertwined pipes.

Using a process developed by University of Stuttgart researchers, fermented sugar is treated with chemicals to make the product. Aniline is used as the base ingredient for chemical MDI, which is an essential material in manufacturing foams.

Traditionally, aniline has been obtained from crude oil derivatives like naphtha and benzene, but producing it emits large quantities of carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas.

Around six million tonnes of aniline are produced globally a year, around one million tonnes of it by Covestro. So far, the pilot project in Leverkusen produces just a tiny part of this, extracting just half a tonne of aniline a day.

Punishing energy costs

Some experts are sceptical about such an approach. The use of plant matter in manufacturing may cut out fossil fuels but whether it can lead to carbon neutrality “is often questionable”, Jens Guenther, from Germany’s Federal Environment Agency, told AFP.

This is particularly the case when it comes to the use of “so-called cultivated biomass like maize, sugar cane and sugar beet,” he said.

Janine Korduan, from environmental NGO BUND, pointed out that industrial agriculture generates “CO2 and methane emissions through land conversion and
the production of fertilisers and pesticides”, and also leads to “major losses of biodiversity and high water consumption”.

Nevertheless, Guenther said the use of plant matter in production processes would likely produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than using fossil fuels, although opting for waste materials rather than crops produced in large-scale farming would be preferable.

Other German companies are experimenting in the area. Chemical giant BASF is seeking to use organic waste, agricultural products or vegetable oils to produce basic chemicals like aniline.

There are many barriers to taking such projects further, however. These range from the availability of the necessary organic matter, which is in great demand as the green transition gathers pace, to higher costs when compared to producing such chemicals with oil.

Scaling up the process will only be justified if it leads to “significant CO2 savings” in the manufacturing process, said Thorsten Dreier, a member of Covestro’s management board who is overseeing the technology.

There will also need to be proof that money “can be made in a competitive environment, in order to finance research here”, he said.

And for Germany, a major challenge will be persuading manufacturers to set up costly new sites for processing chemicals. The energy-intensive chemicals sector in Europe’s top economy has been facing a crisis since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine curtailed cheap Russian gas imports, sending power costs soaring.

Many companies are now more focused on shifting production to cheaper locations overseas, rather than expanding at home.

“Energy costs in Germany are currently three to four times higher than in the United States,” while a bloated bureaucracy is also weighing on industry, warned Dreier.

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