Berlin The FDP has asked the Federal Cartel Office to review pricing in the district heating sector. The economic policy spokesman for the parliamentary group, Reinhard Houben, justified this in a letter to the president of the authority, Andreas Mundt, with reference to prices that were too high.
In the letter dated December 13, 2022, which is available to the Handelsblatt, the FDP politician expresses the expectation that the Cartel Office will “follow up these allegations and promptly initiate a new sector investigation into district heating, thereby examining and analyzing structures and competitive conditions in this area.” .
With the sector inquiry, the supervisory authority can examine entire sectors if “rigid prices or other circumstances” suggest that competition there is no longer working. In the last review of the district heating sector in 2012, the Bundeskartellamt found price differences between individual network areas of more than 100 percent in some cases. Subsequently, seven district heating providers were examined more closely and excessive prices were found. In 2017, the providers therefore had to pay back 55 million euros to the affected households.
Houben refers to the latest findings from consumer advice centers. Some of these had found “horrendous additional payments” for 2021, which meant that increased deductions would be due for 2022. The background is an investigation by consumer protection groups. According to this, the price increase of various providers from April 2021 to April 2022 was between 28 and 92 percent. From the point of view of consumer advocates, the pricing is hardly comprehensible, writes Houben.
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The German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) sees no reason why the Federal Cartel Office should take action. The state cartel offices have repeatedly used existing intervention options.
A spokeswoman for the association told Handelsblatt: “Several sector studies and price surveys have been carried out at state level in recent years. No widespread price abuse could be determined.”
December emergency aid is intended to provide relief
The BDEW considers the criticism of district heating prices to be unjustified. “The fact that district heating prices are currently rising is mainly due to the increased fuel procurement costs,” said the spokeswoman. The heating market is also suffering from the current energy price crisis.
If the costs for the heat supply fall again, the prices would be reduced accordingly. “Companies are usually obliged to do this by applying the so-called price adjustment clause, which reflects both price increases and price reductions.”
With a view to current price peaks, the BDEW spokeswoman referred to the relief measures that had been decided, including the December emergency aid and the price brake that will also apply to heat customers in the coming year. “The legislature has also specifically introduced an abuse provision in the Price Brake Act, according to which objectively unjustified price increases can be prohibited by the Federal Cartel Office,” said the spokeswoman.
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The non-profit consulting company co2online forecasts for the year 2022 an increase in the district heating price by almost 24 percent. As an example, the experts calculated the price development for a 70 square meter two-person apartment in an apartment building with average energy consumption. There, the costs for heating with district heating will increase by an average of ten percent from 966 to 1,060 euros this year due to the warmer weather.
Experts expect the price of district heating to continue to rise
The consumer advocates complain that tenants cannot defend themselves against excessive price increases and cannot avoid them. This is because customers in many regions of Germany cannot switch to cheaper district heating providers because there is no competition.
In some cases there is even a legal obligation to connect to a specific network if district heating is chosen as the form of energy. The more than 500 district heating producers are mostly municipal utilities, but also large suppliers such as RWE, Eon, EnBW and Vattenfall.
District heating is generated in large combined heat and power plants mainly on the basis of coal and natural gas and is supplied to energy supply companies or directly to end users via pipeline systems. Customers are both commercial users and private households. About half of all apartments in Germany are heated with gas. Around 14 percent of households, especially in eastern Germany, use district heating.
Due to the tense supply situation for heating energy, co2online assumes that the prices for district heating will remain at a high level or even increase further. Against this background, the consulting company advocates monitoring monopoly positions of district heating providers and regulating them more closely if necessary.
“In particular, it is crucial that district heating providers make their price structure transparent and point out savings opportunities,” co2online spokesman Alexander Steinfeldt told Handelsblatt. “A third of all district heating customers in Germany pay too much for heating, since the connected load is estimated and not precisely calculated when district heating is installed.”
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