Energy: Reiche: Relief for electricity costs must arrive at customers

Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche wants to ensure that relief at electricity costs really arrive at consumers. The CDU politician told the German Press Agency in Berlin: “The relief must be passed on to customers through the network operators. My clear expectation to the industry is: the relief must arrive at the customer.”

The black and red coalition has announced that the electricity consumers are relieved of the transfer of the transmission network charges and levies by 6.5 billion euros.

The transmission network charges are incurred for the use of the electricity transmission network. They are then passed on to consumers by the energy suppliers. The network fees are part of the electricity price.

The question is to what extent the suppliers pass on the relief to customers. There are also large regional differences in the network charges. The fees, which also pay costs for the expansion of the power grids, are often higher in regions with a lot of renewable energies as in the north than in the south.

Places of scope for relief through quick growth

The Federal Government also decided to steer the reduction in electricity tax for the manufacturing trade from 2026 and to abolish the gas storage surcharge. In the coalition agreement, the CDU, CSU and SPD had announced that they would reduce electricity tax for everyone – albeit with the subject of financing. The Federal Government has the controversial decision of not reducing electricity tax for everyone at first, with household constraints, with the fact that the relief of industry is priority to secure jobs.

“In order to implement the further relief and the clear mandate of the coalition agreement, we have to work out the necessary scope,” said Reiche. “We can create scope in the existing household and crucial: through growth. The moment we have developed scope, we will use them to further reduce energy costs. The faster we can grow, the faster the scope is there.”