Fear of electricity and gas prices being ripped off: how consumers are protected
Created: 2022-12-10 3:12 p.m
By: Bona Hyun
A regulation is intended to prevent exploitation of the electricity and gas price brake.
The Lower Saxony consumer center advises the following.
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
Companies could use the electricity and gas price brakes to drastically increase prices.
How consumers can protect themselves.
Berlin – The electricity and gas price brake is intended to relieve consumers, but critics fear the opposite effect: corporations could rip off customers in the course of the electricity and gas price brake, they say.
The Lower Saxony Consumer Advice Center sees the Federal Cartel Office in particular as having a duty to handle the federal government's planned abuse regulations.
The Lower Saxony Consumer Advice Center recommends to consumers: "We therefore advise you to always check price increase letters for their admissibility according to the general principles," said consumer advocate Julia Schröder to kreiszeitung.de
from IPPEN.MEDIA
.
Protection against rip-offs for electricity and gas: Lower Saxony consumer center sees the Federal Cartel Office as having an obligation
According to Schröder, the Lower Saxony Consumer Advice Center basically advocates preventing price increases that cannot be justified by rising procurement costs.
Furthermore, the existing regulations on price increases would apply between providers and consumers.
The federal government is aware of the problem and has already taken countermeasures.
But are they enough?
How exactly does the electricity and gas price brake work?
The electricity and gas price brake will take effect from 2023.
The electricity price brake is intended to lower the electricity price overall.
This is capped at 40 cents per kilowatt hour for private and small entrepreneurs.
The price cap applies to the base consumption of 80 percent of historical consumption.
For medium-sized and large companies with more than 30,000 kilowatt hours of annual consumption, the price is capped at 13 cents (net working price) for 70 percent of historical consumption.
The gas price brake caps the price for all households and companies with less than 1.5 million kilowatt hours of gas consumption per year.
Accordingly, the gas price should be limited to 12 cents per kilowatt hour.
The price cap also applies to the gas price brake for 80 percent of the previous annual consumption.
The companies pay the normal market price for the rest.
The federal government had initially decided on emergency aid for the rising gas prices for December.
Accordingly, the federal government assumes the costs for the December discount for gas and heat.
Worry about being ripped off by electricity and gas price brakes: consumer advocates warn against exploitation
Although the electricity and gas price brakes are intended to relieve consumers, critics fear that some companies could raise gas and electricity prices more than necessary.
Consumer advocates had warned against exploiting the electricity and gas price brake.
"We do not rule out that one or the other company uses the price brakes to increase more than is absolutely necessary," said consumer advocate Udo Sieverding from the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia.
According to Habeck, exploitation of the electricity and gas price brake is adequately protected by law
Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is alarmed and has already acted with an anti-abuse law.
As a result, he sees the electricity and gas price brake sufficiently protected.
Unjustified rate increases by suppliers could be effectively prevented, Habeck assured the
ARD Tagesschau
.
The Economics Minister assumes that everyone will comply with the law.
In addition, Habeck believes that the suppliers only “pass on the prices that are really necessary to consumers”.
The legal regulation is a clear instrument to act against "grey areas".
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The federal government recently passed a law for a regulation that prevents a more than necessary price increase for gas and electricity.
Price increases that cannot be justified by rising procurement costs are to be prevented by the end of 2023.
According to the federal government's draft law, the supplier must "objectively justify" the price increase.
The regulation is to apply from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.
Electricity and gas price brakes are to come – critics warn of rip-offs and drastic price increases
Nevertheless, there are also doubts in politics about the effectiveness of the regulation.
The draft law, which is intended to protect against a drastic price increase, is still insufficient from the point of view of the left.
The opposition party calls for stricter controls.
"The federal government must approve every new tariff for 2023 for electricity and gas," said parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch to the
editorial network Germany (RND)
.
It should not be that the price brakes become an invitation to cash in for the suppliers and a bottomless pit for the taxpayers.
The Union also called for stricter controls against possible exploitation of the electricity and gas price brake by companies.
The deputy CDU chairman Andreas Jung told the
Tagesspiegel
that "black sheep among the energy suppliers should not earn a golden nose at the expense of the general public".
Energy suppliers reject allegations of exploitation through electricity and gas price brakes
The energy suppliers see themselves as wrong when it comes to the allegations of exploiting the price increase.
The Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries believes price increases are still possible if the "drastically increased procurement costs for electricity and gas are passed on to the energy exchanges," said CEO Kerstin Andreae in a press release.
The blanket assumption that the energy suppliers would abuse the electricity and gas price brake is "absurd".
With the consequences of the Ukraine war, the energy suppliers would have to guarantee the energy supply under the most difficult conditions.
Individual companies should not take advantage of the crisis.
However, it must still be possible to make appropriate adjustments “permissible under the general rules”, according to Andreae.
The longer the price level remains high, the less energy suppliers can compensate for the cost increases.