Electricity and gas prices have fallen in wholesale, but little of this is reaching consumers. At least when it comes to electricity, the cost burden falls.
Gas prices for consumers in Germany have risen noticeably – but electricity has become cheaper. In the first half of the year, private households paid an average of 11.87 cents per kilowatt hour for natural gas – 4.0 percent more than in the second half of 2023, according to the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden.
Compared to the same period last year, gas prices fell by 3.2 percent. Compared to the second half of 2021 – before the Russian attack on Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis – gas prices for household customers were more than two thirds (+73.8 percent) higher, according to the statisticians.
Consumers paid an average of 41.02 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity in the first half of the year. That was 1.7 percent less than in the second half of 2023 and 3.0 percent less than in the same period last year. However, compared to pre-crisis levels in the second half of 2021, costs rose by almost a quarter (24.8 percent).
Lower wholesale prices are of little benefit to consumers
“Private households have so far been able to benefit little from the wholesale prices for natural gas and electricity that fell in 2023 and 2024,” explained the Federal Statistical Office.
During the energy crisis, the federal government tried to curb the rise in costs for consumers with a number of measures – for example by curbing electricity and gas prices or refunding advance payments in December 2022.
The expiry of the electricity and gas price brakes at the end of 2023 had almost no impact on prices for private households, the statisticians explained. For natural gas customers, however, the increased price for CO2 certificates from January and the sales tax, which rose back to the normal tax rate from April, caused a price increase.
Source: Stern
