As of: February 12, 2024, 6:00 a.m
By: Johannes Thoma
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Expensive electricity: Customers suffered from the price jumps, especially in 2022. © Jens Büttner/DPA
Many district residents suffered from the skyrocketing electricity prices two years ago.
Things have now calmed down a bit and domestic providers have lowered prices - only to recently raise them again.
District - Massive increases in prices on the electricity exchange - due, among other things, to higher gas prices - led to price increases for private customers at the beginning of 2022, and many electricity providers also had to file for bankruptcy.
Electricity and gas recipients were briefly without a supplier.
In such a case, the primary care providers had to step in.
This is the provider that supplies the most households in the network area, for example the Peißenberg municipal utility.
They had to take on new customers, but they paid almost 50 percent more than existing customers (45 instead of 31 cents plus the basic fee).
There is now a uniform price again, which is currently around 36.70 cents, according to Philipp Reichhart, sales manager at the municipal utilities.
The price differences at the time resulted from the fact that the municipal utilities did not want to disadvantage their existing customers “with the exploding prices,” said Reichhart.
The municipal utility's current 7,000 customers will soon have to expect a price increase after some reductions.
The reason for this is the short-term loss of government subsidies for transmission system operators.
“Many people just look at the price and immediately switch again”
Incidentally, the rush of customers was not sustainable.
Many of the customers who switched to the municipal utilities in 2022 because their (low-cost) provider was insolvent have long since left.
“Many people just look at the price and immediately switch back,” says Reichhart.
Recently, such companies that lured people with cheap offers have “popped up again like mushrooms”.
This is also confirmed by Thomas Feistl, managing director of the regional energy supplier “17er Oberlandenergie”.
“Some customers have learned nothing and have immediately switched back to one of the low-cost providers.” In contrast to the municipal utilities, the company based in Murnau is not a basic supplier and therefore does not have to take on new customers - on the contrary: it imposed a freeze on admissions that lasted several months.
In August 2022, purchase prices were sometimes as low as one euro per kilowatt hour (kWh) and varied by up to 30 percent per day.
“We couldn’t pass that on to our customers,” says Feistl.
Private customers at “17er Oberlandenergie” currently pay 33.97 cents per kWh for 100 percent electricity from hydropower; by the end of 2023 it was 36.67 cents (plus a basic fee, which varies from provider to provider).
A multi-person household with an annual consumption of 4000 kWh currently pays 1520 euros per year.
The loss of the subsidy for network use has already been priced in for around 16,200 customers.
Overall, the current prices at “17er Oberlandenergie” and its competitors are still significantly higher than those before 2022. At “17er Oberlandenergie” the difference between 2021 and 2024 is around five cents.
(By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter. And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.)
There have also been ups and downs in electricity prices at LEW Lechwerke: since July 2023, private customers have been paying 38.52 cents/kWh, between January and June 2023 it was 42.53 cents - more than ever before.
In 2022, LEW, which has customers primarily in the Altlandkreis Schongau, was able to keep prices stable.
The company does not provide any information about the number of its customers in the Altlandkreis, according to press spokesman Ingo Butters.
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Record prices at Weilheim municipal utilities
Prices rose dramatically for a short time at Stadtwerke Weilheim, which decided not to stop accepting customers in 2022.
Initially, new customers paid 39.95 cents/kWh, but in January 2023 the price shot up to 63.50 cents/kWh.
Existing customers were spared this.
A separate existing customer tariff was introduced for them in 2023.
“In this way, we reward the loyalty of our customers and at the same time forego high new customer bonuses that are paid out by other suppliers,” says Karl Neuner from Stadtwerke.
The current price is 37 cents (always plus the basic fee).
Due to the latest political developments, meaning the loss of subsidies for transmission system operators, “we are now unfortunately forced to increase our prices by four cents from March,” said Neuner.
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