Levies, expenses, and taxes make electrical energy costly – and hinder the change to the climate-friendly, electricity-based options that we urgently want. But many corporations and shoppers have lengthy been able to make the change. The know-how is already obtainable, typically from German producers, who’ve been ready for years for a market breakthrough. As an alternative, Katherina Reiche’s reckless wrong-way drive continues unabated. Jan Philipp Albrecht experiences within the Presidents’ Column.
Credit: image: Sibylle Fendt / Collage: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, All rights reserved.
The state of affairs is paradoxical. Local weather-friendly mobility and heating techniques and clear, emission-free industrial manufacturing have lengthy been technically doable. Right here in Germany, the producers of those applied sciences have been within the beginning gate for years. However one decisive issue continues to be hindering the change: the worth of electrical energy. Normally, the transition to climate-neutral approaches – whether or not in transport, heating, or trade – means a shift from fossil-based power sources to electrical energy (generated from renewable sources) and the power carriers produced with it. Nonetheless, because of excessive levies, expenses, and taxes on the worth of electrical energy, such a change is usually not cost-effective. This may have dramatic penalties, together with for our power effectivity and future safety of provide.
The community expenses are too excessive
The earlier authorities – led by a coalition of social democrats, liberals, and Greens – noticeably lowered the worth of electrical energy, for example by abolishing the renewables (EEG) levy. Nonetheless, electrical energy costs are nonetheless too steep for the change from fossil fuels to electrical energy to be a sexy choice, primarily because of excessive grid charges. That is the place the following absurdity turns into obvious: whereas Germany’s gasoline networks are not being expanded and shoppers are charged solely minimal charges for a community that has already been paid for, we’ve to pay by way of the nostril for our electrical energy utilization. Each particular person connection to a wind or photo voltaic plant incurs prices which can be handed on to us electrical energy shoppers, as does the elevated want for grid growth linked to the power transition. Levies, expenses, and taxes are subsequently greater than twice as excessive for electrical energy per kilowatt hour as for gasoline. This disadvantages these residents and firms who’re driving ahead the growth of our future power provide, our mobility, and our industrial improvement and sends a deadly sign.
The power transition will solely succeed if there may be broad participation throughout society, however that is precisely what’s being blocked. Neighborhood power initiatives that need to collectively construct wind and solar energy vegetation and use district heating or e-mobility; visionary industrial corporations which can be changing outdated refineries into hydrogen manufacturing services and aluminium smelters into gigantic power storage services; start-ups that retrofit regular-service buses into EVs or supply extremely environment friendly warmth pumps, and even cell electrolysers for home use – all of them stumble over the hurdle of electrical energy costs. On the identical time, outdated applied sciences that don’t have any future and that can quickly change into a price lure for us all proceed to be in-built and offered. To deal with this, the state should tackle a higher share of grid charges. Such a transfer would require a totally completely different set of priorities for state subsidies within the power sector.
Previous applied sciences will quickly change into a price lure
These distorted, politically motivated power costs don’t solely hinder the power transition – in addition they stand in the best way of noticeable value reduction for home power customers and are a significant impediment to the financial success of vital future applied sciences which can be “made in Germany”. Whereas Germany spends over 60 billion euros yearly on fossil fuels, its new federal authorities has damaged its promise to abolish the comparatively low electrical energy tax and is as an alternative financing expensive election items that don’t have any vital impact on prosperity, wellbeing, or safety. Vitality Minister Reiche’s bulletins that billions extra can be invested in thrice as many new gas-fired energy vegetation as deliberate underneath the earlier authorities – to be funded by cuts in assist for renewable energies – are a brand new escalation of the federal authorities’s wrong-way drive within the area of power and financial coverage. It’s time to ship a transparent sign: every little thing that protects and advantages us have to be cheaper than what harms us.
