Status: 04/17/2023 2:10 p.m
Electricity and gas also became more expensive in the second half of 2022. Despite falling wholesale prices, consumer prices are likely to remain high – and the Hans Böckler Foundation fears that they will even rise.
The prices for gas and electricity for consumers in Germany rose sharply again in the second half of 2022. For private households, the gas price rose by an average of 16.2 percent to 9.34 cents per kilowatt hour compared to the first half of the year. as reported by the Federal Statistical Office. Compared to the same period last year, gas prices increased by 36.7 percent.
Electricity prices therefore increased less significantly. Private households paid 4.4 percent more than in the first half of 2022 and thus an average of 34.96 cents per kilowatt hour. Compared to the same period last year, there was an increase of 6.4 percent.
Relief such as the Federal Government’s December emergency aid, which waived the December deduction for German households with gas or district heating, but also the reduction in the sales tax rate and the elimination of the EEG surcharge are taken into account.
Electricity and gas prices as triggers for inflation
“The reported increase in electricity and gas prices for the second half of 2022 demonstrates the extent of the energy price shock of the past year,” said Sebastian Dullien, scientific director of the Institute for Macroeconomics and Economic Research of the trade union Hans Böckler Foundation. “Private households paid record prices for both gas and electricity in the second half of the year.”
The price increases are decisively responsible for the currently observed high inflation in Germany. The rising consumer prices also resulted from the high energy costs.
No falling prices for consumers yet
The price increase for consumers is in contrast to the currently falling wholesale prices. While the sharp rise in procurement prices for electricity and gas was the main reason for price increases in recent months, wholesale prices are currently falling.
Nevertheless, price reductions for consumers do not appear to be in sight at first. “Price changes in wholesale are only reflected in prices for private households with a delay, because contracts there usually have longer terms,” explained Dullien.
The sharp increase in wholesale gas prices in the second half of 2022 was not fully reflected in final prices last year. Therefore, gas prices for customers could even rise, the economist expects.
With a view to the term of contracts and the purchasing strategy of companies, the Federal Network Agency had already declared in March that consumers would only benefit from lower wholesale prices for gas and electricity in six to twelve months.
Electricity price as a competitive disadvantage
German industry is also waiting for falling energy prices. According to the Federal Statistical Office, non-household customers such as companies and authorities paid 25.3 percent more for gas in the second half of the year than in the first half of 2022. On average, it was 8.06 cents per kilowatt hour of gas.
Electricity cost 4.4 percent more for non-household customers as well as for private households than in the first half of 2022. They thus paid an average of 20.74 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity in the second half of the year.
“Since the second half of 2019, i.e. immediately before the corona pandemic, electricity prices for large-scale consumers among companies have risen by around 50 percent,” explained Dullien. The same applies to gas prices. “That puts a strain on international competitiveness, especially with competitors in countries with cheaper energy.”