Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: High gas prices are becoming a burden for electricity suppliers

The shortage of gas supplies from Russia is also confusing the electricity market.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: High gas prices are becoming a burden for electricity suppliers

The shortage of gas supplies from Russia is also confusing the electricity market. The high stock market prices could be dangerous for utilities in the north-east.

Schwerin (dpa/mv) - The high gas price also makes it difficult for electricity suppliers in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. A spokesman for the German Energy Agency (Dena) explained that the price on the electricity exchange is always determined by the last power plant that is required for the supply at the current time. At the moment, these are often expensive gas-fired power plants.

The State Association for Renewable Energies (LEE) Mecklenburg-West Pomerania has therefore already warned of major problems for the electricity suppliers - up to and including insolvency. This danger is not seen at the municipal utilities in Rostock, Neubrandenburg and Schwerin. But the operators feel the pressure: "The high price level on the procurement markets is certainly a major challenge for all market participants," said a spokesman for Stadtwerke Schwerin. Increased costs are passed on to customers.

According to Johann-Georg Jaeger from LEE, however, only 20 percent of the required amount of electricity is bought from the energy suppliers at short notice on the exchange. The rest is covered by long-term contracts. The high prices only have a major impact on the public utilities as soon as these contracts have to be renewed. In the short term, Jaeger sees above all the risk of liquidity bottlenecks, since companies have to pre-finance their electricity purchases, even given the high prices. Here he calls for guarantees from the federal, state or local authorities.

According to Dena, simply shutting down the gas-fired power plants would pose enormous problems for Germany, since some of them can also be used to generate heat and cannot be replaced by other power plants. In addition, flexible gas-fired power plants are required to control the different feed-in from renewable energies such as wind or solar. Coal-fired power plants - which can also be used for this purpose - would have enormous problems at the moment because of the low water levels in the rivers.