Dusseldorf The Bundeskartellamt has initiated proceedings against several gas suppliers and is examining whether they have increased their prices disproportionately in order to receive public funds via the energy price brakes. A double-digit number of suppliers is affected, said the head of the Cartel Office, Andreas Mundt, on Monday. Further proceedings in the areas of district heating and electricity are pending. The Cartel Office is in the process of “bringing light into the darkness”.
Just in time for the introduction of the electricity and gas price brake, numerous suppliers had raised the prices of their tariffs very sharply. The Handelsblatt had already reported on disproportionate price increases at the end of last year.
In some regions, the basic supply tariffs for electricity have increased by almost 150 percent since January of this year. There were similar price increases for gas.
It is understandable that prices are going up. After all, the gas price also rose massively in wholesale last year. In the meantime, a megawatt hour (MWh) of natural gas cost around 400 euros on the Dutch TTF exchange. In previous years, the price for one MWh of gas was usually between 15 and 25 euros.
The price increases for electricity are similar. “Many supply contracts are now gradually expiring, so replacement purchases are of course more expensive than they were two years ago,” says the defense from the energy industry.
Experts: Utilities may have raised energy prices disproportionately
However, the prices also climbed so extremely across the board that, according to some experts, not all of the surcharges could be justified by the increased procurement costs for electricity and gas. Consumer advocates had previously warned of unnecessary price increases at the start of the electricity and gas price brake.
The price brake is intended to relieve consumers and came into force in March 2023. It applies retrospectively from the beginning of January and caps the price per kilowatt hour for electricity at 40 cents and for gas at 12 cents for 80 percent of consumption. The state reimburses the energy supplier for the rest.
Cartel Office creates its own department
Here, consumer advocates see the risk of free-rider effects from unjustified price increases. But something like this could only be proven by a long-term observation of prices. That is now the task of the cartel offices. The authority has even set up a separate department for this purpose.
The procedure that has now been initiated was preceded by an analysis of all application and reporting data in several thousand applications, from which pricing, delivery quantities, relief amounts and customer numbers would result in particular, the authority said. As part of the examination procedure, the Federal Cartel Office will question the companies identified as conspicuous.
However, price increases alone are not an indication of abuse, Kerstin Andreae, Chairwoman of the Federal Association for Energy and Water Management, emphasized on Monday: “Due to the long-term procurement costs of many energy suppliers, these sometimes only affect end customer prices with a delay. Energy suppliers must be able to pass these sharply increased procurement costs on to their customers. Otherwise their liquidity is endangered themselves,” says a statement.
In principle, however, the announced investigation is welcomed. After all, it shouldn’t be “that individual companies take advantage of the crisis,” said Andreae.
If violations are found, the suppliers would have to repay unlawfully obtained compensation payments to the federal government or the electricity transmission system operators. The Cartel Office could also impose fines.
With material from Reuters.
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