The electricity price brake has been in effect since January.
But how does it actually work?
And where can the relevant data be found in the statement?
A look at the example of the Munich public utility company.
Munich - After the electricity shock comes the price brake - now also in black and white for the customers of the Munich public utility company.
SWM has now sent letters with information on the electricity price brake to around 123,000 customers.
Noted on it: the relief and new deductions for the budgets.
Background: Because of the Ukraine war, electricity prices exploded last year - SWM had initially announced that it would more than double electricity prices this year.
Although these increased prices have fallen again since April, they remain at a high level.
Price brake for electricity and gas: This is how it affects the bills
The federal government's electricity price brake is intended to partially cushion this burden.
It has been in force since March - and it also applies retrospectively to January and February 2023. The price brake should only have to pay a maximum of 40 cents per kilowatt hour for 80 percent of their previous consumption (usually from the previous year).
But so far, most SWM customers have not known how the price brake will affect them in concrete terms.
In March, SWM had neither deducted any deductions nor provided any information about the relief.
Because: The law had to be implemented at extremely short notice.
But now the price brake post is in the mailboxes.
We explain the most important figures using a specific example (family of four in an apartment building with average consumption).
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Banknotes on letters from electricity and gas providers with a reference to price increases from January 1, 2023 (symbolic image).
© IMAGO/Emmanuele Contini
Price brake on the electricity bill: where does the zero for March come from?
In the example, there is no payment at all in March.
This is because customers would still have had to pay their old discounts without a price brake up to and including March.
In the example, that was 95 euros (still the previous year's value without a self-initiated increase).
Because the price brake takes effect retrospectively, SWM waived the debit in March.
The parts of the relief amount (see left) are thus offset for the first three months.
In the example, the customer is relieved by the price brake by 33 euros per month.
Since he had not received this relief by March, SWM owed him 99 euros.
To compensate for this, the (old) debit of 95 euros in March was dropped.
The customer receives the remainder of four euros with the annual statement.
Danger!
Not everyone has a zero in March - it depends on the amount of the discounts.
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SWM's current discount plan for 2023, including the electricity price brake.
© FKN
The relief amount
The relief amount is the sum that customers have to pay less due to the electricity price brake - calculated over the year.
This money is a government grant.
In our example, it is 369.21 euros.
The amount is individual for each invoice.
The public utilities divide the relief over the months - this reduces the monthly payment.
In the example, the relief for the months of January to September is around 33 euros.
This means that without the electricity price brake, the family of four would actually have had to pay a deduction of 162 euros per month.
The relief amount reduces this to 129 euros.
One question remains: 369.21 euros - divided over twelve months - does not result in 33, but just under 31 euros.
Reason: The family's accounting period runs from September to September.
The electricity price brake is intended to mitigate the high energy costs.
A calculation shows that consumers can benefit twice over if they save heavily.
List of rubrics: © IMAGO/Emmanuele Contini
