As of: February 1, 2024, 10:20 a.m
By: Amy Walker
Comments
Press
Split
District heating should be an important component on the path to climate-neutral energy supply.
But how the prices are put together is a bit of a mystery.
Berlin – District heating is a source of hope for the heating transition.
This makes it possible to supply thousands of households with climate-friendly energy.
The creation of the heating network is not without its challenges: huge pipes have to be laid under the respective settlement from the power plant to the individual households, a gigantic infrastructure project.
But the investment - both financially and in terms of time - can be worth it if it results in millions of gas and oil heating systems being switched off.
At least in the future, many district heating customers are currently still supplied with energy from gas power plants.
However, district heating has a major disadvantage that customers are currently feeling particularly hard: the price.
In numerous media reports you can currently read about exorbitant additional payments, with district heating customers being charged thousands of euros.
How the price is determined is not always clear.
Customers of district heating suppliers who do not use gas also receive hefty bills.
The Federal Cartel Office is also suspicious.
Natural monopoly of district heating suppliers
Consumer protection centers have been warning about this major problem for years.
The energy companies' monopoly is hardly regulated.
District heating is a so-called “natural monopoly”.
What this means is that there is only one district heating provider within a postal code, if at all.
Building multiple networks would also be completely unrealistic and uneconomical.
But the natural monopoly naturally means that there is no competition; customers cannot switch to a cheaper provider if prices increase.
As consumer advocates describe it, they are “captive customers”.
It is therefore not uncommon for contracts with very long terms to be agreed, for example over ten years.
Consumer advice centers, the German Tenants' Association and the Federal Association of the New Energy Industry have been criticizing precisely this fact since at least 2016.
The prices of district heating suppliers need to be better regulated in order to protect consumers.
In addition, they have been demanding, also since at least 2016, that the compilation of prices be made accessible and comprehensible on the Internet.
Since they made their demands, however, nothing has happened politically.
Federal Cartel Office is investigating energy suppliers
Instead, what the consumer advice centers warned about has happened: the energy crisis has led to significantly higher prices across all energy sources.
However, district heating customers cannot understand at all how the new, very high prices come about.
And the Federal Cartel Office has also taken notice: In November 2023, the office wrote that it was “opening proceedings against a total of six municipal utilities and district heating suppliers on suspicion of abusively excessive price increases in the period from January 2021 to September 2023.”
Full blast for the climate: In order to achieve the goal of decarbonization and climate neutrality, more people should use district heating from renewable energies.
© Christian Charisius/dpa/dpa-tmn
The President of the Federal Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt, continues: “The district heating prices must be based on the development of the suppliers’ actual costs and the general price development in heat supply.
For example, it raises questions if a company has adjusted the district heating price to the development of the gas price, even though other cheaper alternatives were actually used to generate heat.”
My news
British newspaper makes it clear: Anyone who looks at Germany sees an “accident in slow motion”.
“Look at your pension,” says an expert on ARD – and explains the “problem” of the debt brake
Restrictions on pensions at 63: “Deduction-free pension” only for one group
Traffic light's new pension package is intended to "stabilize" pensions - but it's not enough
Pensioners beware: in February your pension will be transferred later than usual
According to the fire letter from the economy: Kubicki demands course correction from Scholzlesen
Habeck is examining adjustments to the district heating regulations - a balancing act
But, as Der Spiegel
reports
, politicians could now take action.
Robert Habeck's (Greens) Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed upon request that they were thinking about adjusting the district heating regulations "to protect customers".
So could what consumer advocates have been demanding for years now finally happen?
Maybe - but there isn't much concrete evidence for this.
According to Spiegel
, the traffic light groups
basically agree that transparency needs to improve.
Ultimately, you have to keep customers on board so that they decide in favor of district heating and against installing a new gas heating system.
At the same time, politicians are also aware that they must continue to keep district heating attractive for energy companies - after all, according to the government's wishes, they should invest massively in the construction of further district heating networks in the coming years.
That will cost a lot of money.
Money that has to come from somewhere.
In the end, the investments must pay off for the utilities.
So for politics it is a balancing act.
Customers, on the other hand, can hope that the price will fall again, at least in the short term.
The bills currently arriving are mostly from 2022, before the price cap for district heating was in place.
So the next bill is likely to be lower.