District heating is considered a climate-friendly form of heating, and the federal government wants to see significantly more homes supplied in this way. But trust in district heating has suffered massively because some providers shocked their customers last year with horrendous additional charges and heavy discounts. Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office, is therefore calling for stricter rules for the industry and he believes that his Bonn-based authority would be exactly the right institution to enforce them.
To do this, the agency would of course need new rights and more employees: “Extended powers and resources for the antitrust authorities could make an important contribution to ensuring that this energy supply, which will become even more important in the future, is transparent and fair,” said the 63-year-old on Wednesday at the Presentation of the annual reportThe office currently has 450 employees. The competition authorities have already Proceedings initiated against six municipal utilities and district heating suppliersThe Bonn-based company is primarily checking whether the price adjustment clauses in the customers’ contracts are legal.
These clauses allow companies to raise prices if costs have increased. After the war in Ukraine broke out, natural gas prices rose sharply, and suppliers used this as a justification for hefty price increases. However, the clauses are difficult to understand and can sometimes lead to higher prices even if the heating plant does not burn natural gas at all, but rather waste, for example.
In total, 6.4 million homes in Germany are supplied with district heating. And the price differences between companies are enormous, as the comparison platform Waermepreise.info shows. However, changing the provider is not possible; Mundt therefore speaks of “a classic monopoly market” and “captive customers”. There are already various rules and court rulings on the district heating market, says the president, but clearer guidelines are needed, especially for pricing. In addition, these rules must be enforced more consistently – by a “powerful authority such as the Federal Cartel Office”.
Artificial intelligence is an “accelerant”
The Federal Association of Consumer Organizations is also alarmed. The organization has issued a complaint about the non-transparent price adjustment clauses Class action lawsuits against the two suppliers Eon and Hansewerk Natur started. The DAX group Eon is the largest provider of district heating in Germany. CEO Leonhard Birnbaum admitted in an interview with the SZ that these clauses have sometimes “led to results that nobody wanted”. Therefore, politicians and providers must now “consider what the price clauses should look like in the future”.
Mundt’s authority is also dedicated to hunting down cartels and approving mergers. In addition, the authority – just like the EU Commission – is taking action against Internet companies such as Amazon or Google’s parent company Alphabet abusing their power to the detriment of customers or small rivals. The Bonn-based authority is currently conducting seven proceedings against these two companies as well as against Apple, Microsoft and the Facebook provider Meta. The president warns that the triumph of applications with artificial intelligence could further increase the power of these companies: “Artificial intelligence is a first-class accelerant that ultimately makes all the problems we have with Big Tech even worse.”