Additional burden for consumers: Increasing grid fees make energy even more expensive

Everything gets more expensive.

Additional burden for consumers: Increasing grid fees make energy even more expensive

Everything gets more expensive. The heating and electricity costs are currently causing particular concern. The grid fees for electricity and gas are also increasing in the new year. For consumers, this means rising energy costs.

Soaring energy costs are driving inflation, making life more expensive. To make matters worse, the network fees for electricity and gas at the turn of the year nationwide will rise by almost 20 percent - more than ever before. This is the result of an analysis by the comparison portal Verivox based on the provisional network usage fees. Electricity and gas prices had already reached new highs in October.

The grid fee is the price for the use, repair and maintenance that each grid user who receives electricity or gas through the corresponding supply grid has to pay to the grid operator.

power grid charges

For example, the electricity network costs with a consumption of 4000 kilowatt hours (kWh) in 2023 are expected to increase nationwide from 303 to 360 euros. This corresponds to a price increase of 19 percent and additional costs of 57 euros per year. However, consumers are burdened differently in different regions. The strongest increase is in Brandenburg with an increase of 43 percent. This corresponds to an additional annual burden of 156 euros. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the electricity grid fees will increase by around 40 percent (plus 143 euros), in Berlin by 30 percent (plus 79 euros).

The pollution is lowest in Bremen (plus 7 percent), Thuringia (plus 9 percent) and Baden-Württemberg (plus 10 percent).

gas network charges

On January 1, 2023, the national gas network fees will probably also rise significantly by around 18 percent to 390 euros net. For a model household in a single-family house (20,000 kWh), this means additional costs of around 61 euros per year. There are also big regional differences here. The gas network fees in Hamburg will rise by 44 percent. This corresponds to an additional annual cost of 130 euros. In Saxony-Anhalt the increase is 23 percent (plus 82 euros), in Berlin (plus 62 euros), Bremen (plus 76 euros) and Saxony (plus 77 euros) each 22 percent. There are comparatively low growth rates in Hesse (plus 14 percent), in Thuringia (plus 15 percent) as well as in Rhineland-Palatinate (plus 85 percent) and Bavaria (plus 15 percent).

"After the high procurement costs drove energy prices to unimagined heights over the course of the year, prices are now also coming under pressure from record price grid fees. We therefore expect energy prices to continue to rise at the turn of the year," says Thorsten Storck, energy expert at Verivox, summarizing the misery.