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Germany warns EU electricity tax plan threatens national sovereignty (www.euronews.com)
submitted 8 hours ago by ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org
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[-] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

But electricity is still significantly more expensive than fossil gas across the EU, often charged three to five times more than gas, making it harder for households and businesses to switch to clean technologies.

Assuming that that's for the same unit of energy, that does seem unreasonable.

thinks

Germany does, unless something has changed---and a lot has happened politically regarding European and especially German energy supply in the last few years, so I guess it could have changed---have exceptionally high taxation of residential electricity users, with much lower taxation on industrial users. I think that some of that tax goes to subsidizing wind buildout or something.

searches

Looks like the renewables subsidy ended, but Germany still has hefty electricity taxes on specifically residential customers.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/what-german-households-pay-electricity

End of renewables surcharge overshadowed by surge of other price components

The renewable energy surcharge was used to pay the difference between wholesale prices and fixed feed-in tariffs for green energy, which are guaranteed by law to renewable power producers for 20 years. The surcharge grew from 0.08 ct/kWh in 1998 to 6.5 ct/kWh in 2021 and was reduced to 3.7 ct/kWh at the beginning of 2022,before being eliminated entirely later that year. Since the surcharge ended, the difference is paid directly from the state budget.

In the first six months of 2022, households still paid about 6.5 billion euros for the surcharge. Unlike energy-intensive commercial customers, households are required to pay levies and taxes in full.

However, the savings for households generated by ending the renewables surcharge were quickly offset by other price-inflating factors, meaning that the average household paid about 20 percent more for electricity in 2025 than it did in 2021.

Nominal household power prices in Germany were the highest in the entire EU in the first half of 2025, with the share of taxes and levies also among the top group of member states.

EDIT: Well, it says that they are still subsidizing it out of the general budget, and they still have hefty residential electricity taxes, so I guess you could say that the subsidy still effectively exists, even if it's not broken out as a named item.

[-] Ooops@feddit.org 5 points 6 hours ago

You have missed the best part: At the same time they are talking about ending feed-in compensation for renewables they also planning to disallow renewable upbuild without proper grid capacities while also removing any incentive for grid providers to build up the grid. Grid providers that are usually well-connected or subsidiaries of fossil-fuel heavy energy companies. And on top they reworked the guide lines for energy security in a way that disqualifies basically all storage and only allow fossil fuel power plants a a backup solution.

So exactly nobody will seriously invest in renewables again as any profits are now depending on a third party that benefits from you failing. And storage is once again dead (not surprisingly as the CEO of the worst offender in delaying applications for grid connections of batteries (literal years for a process that should take a few weeks) was awarded with a job as Minister of Economy and Energy).

The whole corrupt German government is basically running one big scam to make the country dependeable on fossil fuels forever while screaming 24/7 how green power is the reason for high consumer costs.

[-] plyth@feddit.org 1 points 4 hours ago

But electricity is still significantly more expensive than fossil gas across the EU, often charged three to five times more than gas,

That's the efficiency factor. That much gas is needed to create the electricity.

Natural gas combustion turbine plants achieve efficiencies of 35-42%.

https://www.woodwayenergy.com/natural-gas-efficiency-in-power-generation/

this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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