A lack of transparency, speculation, management errors: the opposition in the city council has massively criticized the municipal utilities (SWM) for their actions in the energy crisis. The starting point were two motions by the parliamentary group The Left/The Party to describe the consequences of the energy price brakes and further price developments for district heating. This resulted in a more than two-hour, sometimes heated debate in the Economic Committee on Tuesday.
SWM manager Thomas Meerpohl represented Stadtwerke boss Florian Bieberbach. In a recent SZ interview, he explained how it was possible that the municipal utilities were currently at the top of the list of providers with their energy prices. He had also argued that with the electricity price brake, a “uniform price” would soon apply for the whole of Germany anyway.
Meerpohl first gave an outline of the supply situation, which had “relented significantly”, and the future prospects. The high prices are due to the times at which Stadtwerke bought gas. Last summer, for example, “relatively large quantities were procured in the expectation that prices could still rise at the end of the year”. Other competitors would have made their decisions at more favorable times.
However, the municipal utilities wanted “to get back into a better competitive situation as quickly as possible”, they tried to act as transparently as possible and are aware of their social responsibility – this is shown, for example, with the heat fund for needy households that has just been launched.
“Fairy tales that SWM has presented to customers for years”
Gabriele Neff, deputy leader of the FDP/Bavarian Party parliamentary group, said she was “speechless”. She says that people speak to her in droves who do not know how to pay these costs – “because they have speculated”. The FDP colleague speaks from his heart, well-known Left Party leader Stefan Jagel. He does not consider SWM’s pricing policy to be transparent; when it came to the district heating prices, his small group had to make “Bambule” before they were openly communicated on the company’s website. Now an apology from Stadtwerke to their customers is due for this purchasing policy.
Tobias Ruff, leader of the ÖDP/Munich-List parliamentary group, spoke of “fairy tales that SWM has been telling customers for years,” for example about the specially generated green electricity, which covers 90 percent of Munich’s needs. For the electricity price brake, the public utilities would not only have to give up high excess profits, but would also get money back to an extent “that no other supplier in Germany can claim”.
The Munich customers now lived at the expense of others “who have better and more reliable public utilities”. Someone must take responsibility for this “disaster”. CSU faction leader Manuel Pretzl accused the public utility company of “dramatic management errors” and that they “gambled” with their purchasing strategy.
SWM manager Meerpohl rejected the accusation of speculation: “The public utilities do not speculate and have not speculated here either.” The procedure last summer corresponded to “our processes and strategies”. Greens parliamentary group leader Dominik Krause also contradicted: SWM was concerned with security of supply, “even if it costs more money”. That is “the opposite of gambling”. His parliamentary group has also received many inquiries: if the public utility company relies so heavily on renewable energies, why isn’t there a greater redistribution? That is now taking place with the nationwide price brakes, says Krause, “just not at the local level”.
Simone Burger (SPD) said that her parliamentary group also considered the prices of the public utilities to be too expensive. “We have to do everything we can to make them sink again.” There is a lot of discussion with the municipal utilities, for example whether it is better to conclude long-term contracts. Addressing the opposition factions, she said: “We would like to see more objectivity in one place or another.”