Gas: Costs for consumers are expected to rise sharply from October
Created: 08/05/2022 10:28 am
By: Carina Blumenroth, Juliane Gutmann
Gas importers are expected to be able to pass on their additional costs to consumers from October.
The allocations are limited in time, initially until March 2024.
Update on August 5, 2022
: The state gas levy, which supports gas suppliers and ensures price increases for gas customers, is coming.
The Ministry of Economics announced on Thursday in Berlin that the cabinet had approved the levy in a written circulation procedure.
As the
world
further informs, it is planned that the state levy will take effect from autumn.
According to the Federal Ministry of Economics, the overarching goal is to prevent insolvencies and supply failures in the gas supply and thus ensure security of supply in Germany.
The levy is "not an easy step, but it is necessary to secure the heat and energy supply in private households and in the economy," quotes
Zeit Online
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens).
According to him, the temporary levy must be accompanied by further relief for citizens.
However, it is not yet clear what exactly this should look like.
The amount of the contribution has not yet been determined.
The federal government informs: “It depends on how much and to what extent financial compensation claims are asserted.
The decisive factor here is how Russian gas supplies develop.
As a result, a levy of 1.5 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour can be assumed, distributed across all gas customers in Germany.
The amount of the levy is currently being determined and will be published on the Trading Hub Europe website in mid-August.
The federal government also says: “The financial burden of the levy is considerable.
Households will face additional costs of several hundred euros.
The federal government agrees that there should be further relief measures for consumers.
Article from August 1st, 2022
: The energy and gas costs are currently increasing extremely, which is partly a result of the Ukraine war.
In order to ensure the gas importers' ability to act and to guarantee the energy supply, it should be possible to pass on the additional costs to the consumers.
This is expected to be the case from October 2022.
According to information from the
Tagesschau
, it is still unclear how much the price will rise.
This depends on the amount to which gas importers can claim compensation payments.
More information will be shared at the end of August.
Consumers can feel the gas surcharge from October 2022.
© Sascha Steinach/Imago
Gas levy on consumers: Consequence of the war and the throttling of Russian imports
Some gas importers have concluded long-term contracts for the import of Russian gas - the supply was stopped by Russia as a result of the Ukraine war.
For the gas importers, this meant that they had to reschedule at short notice and had to procure expensive replacement gas.
It should be possible to pass these additional costs on to consumers in the future.
According to
Tagesschau
, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) mentioned a possible price range of between 1.5 and five cents per kilowatt hour.
This is also related to the additional costs for the company.
It is not yet possible to estimate more precisely, but there will probably be a few hundred euros per household.
The consumer
portal Check24
reports on
Focus
additional costs of between 357 and 1,190 euros per year for a four-person model household with an annual consumption of 20,000 kilowatt hours.
These costs depend on the amount of the surcharge.
Gas surcharge: protect people from poverty, but the state cannot cover all the costs
The gas surcharges are a necessary step, the costs for consumers would be made bearable.
The
Tagesschau
quotes Robert Habeck as follows: "But the people who are really being led into poverty by the higher energy prices must be protected".
What exactly this protection looks like is not yet clear.
The planned gas levy is met with criticism, especially from the left, since it is not feasible, especially for low-income people.
In the
ZDF morning magazine
The energy policy spokesman for the left, Lorenz Gösta Beutin, calls for a gas price cap.
"We want an energy flat rate for low-income households and, on the other hand, higher rates for Hartz IV and student loans."
The background is that these sentences "really secure the existence", because this is not given by the inflation.
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Gas levy 2022: About half of all apartments are heated with gas
According to reports, the additional costs will become noticeable to consumers a little later than October 2022.
These are limited to around one and a half years – probably until the end of March 2024.
For the implementation, Paragraph 26 of the Energy Security Act is to come into force by ministerial decree.
The paragraph empowers the federal government to issue a statutory ordinance without the consent of the Bundesrat.
As soon as this is the case, the difference in the additional costs can be divided equally among the consumers.
The
Tagesschau
reports that the surcharge is initially calculated based on an assumption of the costs, which would then be offset against the actual costs afterwards.
