Germans Spent “More Than Ever Before”…Consumer Electricity Costs Reach Record High In 2020

German online public broadcasting site ntv here reports how German consumers last year spent “around 37.8 billion euros in 2020 – more than ever before.”

Citing calculations from the shopping portal Check24, the total amount paid was about 900 million euros more than in 2019.

One reason was the high consumption due to home office use. But the primary reason was because of the rising cost of green electricity.

The last time private consumption was about the same as in 2020 was in 2016. But in 2020 the electricity costs increased by a total of three billion euros.

“The average price per kilowatt hour rose from 27 cents to around 30 cents during this period,” ntv reports. “The rise in electricity costs is not only due to more frequent use of the home office during the Corona crisis. The levies and taxes included in the electricity price have risen particularly sharply in recent years.”

German consumer electricity prices are the highest in Europe. Source: Eurostat

75% of the price are taxes, levies and surcharges

Among the levies charged are the German EEG renewable energy feed-in surcharges, which have pushed German consumer electricity prices to around 30 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour.

According to figures from the Federal Network Agency, levies and taxes accounted for more than three quarters of private household electricity bills in 2020. According to the EU statistics office Eurostat, Germany has the highest electricity prices for household customers.

Efforts to curtail prices have failed

So painful have electricity prices become, that now the German government is contemplating changing the system of subsidizing green electricity, and Economics Minister Peter Altmaier says “it is necessary to completely abolish the levy paid by consumers,” reports ntv.

“By abolishing the EEG levy, the German government could relieve German households of around 9.7 billion euros,” says Lasse Schmid, Managing Director Energy at Check24.

Experts expect costs to climb further. “If electricity consumption remains more or less constant in 2021, this record will be surpassed again in 2021,” suspects Schmid.

German prices for industry triple

Meanwhile electricity prices for German industry have nearly tripled since 2000. According to Statista here, prices for electricity used by industry have risen from about 6 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour in 2000 to about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour today.

Also the supply of German electricity has become more unsteady as power grid operators regularly have to intervene in their struggle to keep the grid from fluctuating out of control due to the weather-dependent wind and solar energies.




8 responses to “Germans Spent “More Than Ever Before”…Consumer Electricity Costs Reach Record High In 2020”

  1. German Electricity Prices Highest In Europe, Spent ‘More Than Ever Before’ | altnews.org

    […] Read more at No Tricks Zone […]

  2. mwhite

    They keep voting for it.

  3. German Electricity Prices Highest In Europe, Spent ‘More Than Ever Before’ – Menopausal Mother Nature

    […] Read more at No Tricks Zone […]

  4. Alan

    As M White says, they keep voting for this, so I hope they enjoy paying through the nose for it.

    Probably explains why the air con doesn’t work properly in ANY German hotel I visited the other year. Had a great time but I won’t go there in summer again.

    Interesting that industry gets the same electrons so vastly cheaper than the filthy public peasants?

  5. John F Hultquist

    Now is not a good time to be on the financial margin of a country such as Germany, England, and others hell-bent on self destruction.

    I see summaries of the space and resources needs of a green replacement for carbon-based fuel. Apparently no “leaders” have seen these. Their retinue must be several layers thick. Are they allowed to read, look, or listen to non-cult material?
    Do any leaders pay for their own energy use?
    Are their official cars EVs? What about family housing and cars?
    All electric, or not? Have they ever had to choose between needs?
    Inquiring minds want to know.

  6. pochas94

    If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not really signalling anything.

  7. Prisoner

    The Federal Republic of Germany is a huge prison colony of the “occupation force” (quote from Russian politician Fjodorow). We have the highest low wage sector, few own homes, but the highest taxes and energy prices, an expensive occupation force and they always want a little more.

    Japan and South Korea too are also occupied countries but they do know this. They have to pay nearly 2 billion dollars per year to the occupation force. In Germany, this knowledge is suppressed and denied, although in our Grundgesetz, article 120, you clearly see that we still have to pay for the occupation costs!

  8. AmericanThinker: The Politicization of Energy Policy Needs to Stop - wlvrns!

    […] they aren’t reliable since the sun and wind are intermittent. Neither are they scalable, affordable, or […]

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