Citizens should no longer have to deal with the green electricity subsidy. On July 1, the federal government took over the financing of renewable energies, the government sold it as a big relief. After all, average households had to spend around 200 euros on the so-called EEG surcharge last year. But what hardly anyone noticed: the German green electricity credit has quietly and secretly increased in recent months – by July alone to almost 17 billion euros.
The opposition has now noticed exactly that, more precisely: the deputy chairman of the Union faction Jens Spahn. “Before the traffic light continues to be discussed in a cumbersome manner, it should use this money that is already available to immediately relieve citizens and industry of electricity costs,” said Spahn Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Behind the apparent billion-dollar find is the special mechanism of the German green electricity promotion. Because the state has guaranteed the operators of wind turbines, solar cells or biogas plants certain revenues for their electricity. This electricity is then resold via the electricity exchange. Which means: If the exchange prices for electricity are low, a lot has to be added from the green electricity credit – the so-called EEG account. But if they are high, the opposite applies. And right now they are high, very high.
The Treasury denies that there is additional financial leeway
Accordingly, the account is filling up these days. Only a fraction of the billions that the state is currently paying in there instead of electricity customers. More than 800 million euros remained as additional assets in July alone. The numbers for August are not yet public, but the CDU generously estimates them at another billion. That would already be 18 billion euros in credit. And Spahn also generously calculates the 6.6 billion euros with which the federal government now wants to support the account annually from the climate and transformation fund. According to his calculations, this would then amount to 25 billion euros, which could be distributed to the citizens.
“While citizens and industry groan under the high energy prices, the traffic light is sitting on an EEG pot of almost 25 billion,” says Spahn. This could be used to finance a suspension of the so-called grid fees, he calculates – that’s the item on the electricity bill with which consumers contribute to the expansion and maintenance of the power lines. And the electricity tax can also be reduced to the EU minimum rate. For both it takes 21 billion euros. “The other four billion can be used for further targeted relief,” says Spahn.
The Federal Ministry of Finance thinks little of the idea. The federal grants are already calculated in such a way “that the entire credit balance of the EEG account is used up in the financial planning period,” it says there. Should the futures prices on the electricity exchanges fall again, “considerable additional funds” would even be necessary. In this respect, the ministry explains, “there is no additional financial leeway from the surpluses that have accumulated so far on the EEG account”.