Germany: 350,000 households had electricity disconnected last year

Germany has the second highest electricity prices in the EU, after Denmark and ahead of Ireland who are third. The following is taken from an article in Der Spiegel from yesterday which reports that the highest number of disconnections was recorded last year. Is this a sign of things to come here in Ireland ?

Because of rising prices, more and more German citizens are unable to pay their electricity bills. Exactly 351,802 residential customers in primary care, the current was 2014 temporarily disconnected, report the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) and the Federal Cartel Office in its new monitoring report. The paper is to be adopted on Wednesday in the Cabinet, it is SPIEGEL ONLINE excerpts before.

Yet far more households have problems with their electricity bill.According to the Federal Network Agency supplier threatened its customers a total of 6.3 million times, the power to cut.The number of power cuts is therefore increased to the highest value ever recorded. In 2013 344.798 barriers had been imposed, in 2012 there were approximately 320,000.

Households pay more, industry profits

The main reason for the increasing number of barriers are the rapidly rising electricity prices. Since 2002, the costs for consumers almost doubled, partly because the levy for renewables rose, on the other hand because the big power utilities reduced costs not passed on to consumers.

Victims are the households. Your electricity costs are around 45 percent higher than the EU average of 20.52 cents per kilowatt hour. Adjusted for taxes industrial electricity price however is 6.27 cents per kilowatt hour, well below the EU average of 9.37 per kilowatt hour.

Further increases are expected to be announced in the coming week. The power companies need their customers to be notified no later than November 20 planned price changes for 2016th Experience has shown that many send the unpopular increase letters at the last minute.By 2016, several utilities have already announced further increases. On average, this will be just over three per cent, which would mean a four-person household an additional cost of approximately 40 euros per year.

The Greens Group Vice Oliver Krischer keeps developing at the current locks for worrying. "Consumers who are threatened with electricity and gas barriers, need special counseling and support services," he says. "The fact that a government has undertaken with the participation of the Social Democrats to this day nothing about this issue, is an indictment."