In Munich, Stadtwerke customers are getting mail. It announces the massive increase in electricity prices. This is the case in many households. Economics Minister Habeck claimed a few months ago that we had no electricity problem. The opposite is true.
The people of Munich like to grumble. Ludwig Thoma described this perfectly in the wonderful satire “Ein Münchner im Himmel”. At the moment, the residents of the Bavarian state capital are more likely to feel like they are in hell. At least when they receive mail from the public utility company. Topic: The increased electricity price.
Even the first sentence in the three-page letter from SWM Versorgungs GmbH gives a glimpse of the bad. “It is important to us to supply you with electricity reliably and at fair prices – especially in difficult times,” it says. The recipient knows what to expect: a price increase.
But stop! Why should something change in the electricity price? Didn’t our Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck assure us in the summer with an innocent look under his carefully tousled hair that “we currently have a gas problem, not an electricity problem”? And didn’t all the green and red government politicians sing the same Habeck refrain: no electricity problem?
Energy has never been as expensive as it is now. But instead of panicking, you should calmly check potential savings at home. As our guide shows, there are many of them.
“No electricity problem”, that’s how it is for our Munich resident today: The gross price of currently 24.97 cents per kilowatt hour will increase on January 1st
61.98 cents. That’s a whopping 148 percent more, which the public utility company regrets eloquently, namely “very sorry”. Munich residents, who previously paid 1,500 euros a year for electricity, will in future pay 3,720 euros. Pretty expensive, this Habeck non-problem.
The price of electricity had already risen significantly in 2021. Because of the decommissioned nuclear and coal-fired power plants, there was a lack of base load. This deficit had to be compensated with expensive electricity from gas. So it was very foreseeable that Putin’s “energy war” against the West would drive up the price of electricity even further.
The people of Munich in the hell of electricity prices rightly feel that the Federal Minister of Economics is kidding, not to use a more drastic expression. Did Habeck really not know that the price of electricity depends directly on the price of gas, because gas, which is becoming more and more expensive, is also used to generate electricity?
Or was he just doing so because he didn’t want to extend the life of the last three nuclear power plants beyond the end of the year? If there is – supposedly – no electricity problem, you can – supposedly – do without the much cheaper nuclear power. In any case, the Germans – not just those in Munich – should believe that.
Our Munich is at one hundred and eighty. But not only him. Countless Germans who have also received mail from their electricity provider with similar announcements are in a similar “mood”. It is also no consolation that the municipal utility honestly assures that “any relief (electricity price brake)” has not yet been taken into account. Which is only logical. Because nobody knows when this brake will take effect; certainly not by January 1st.
Our Munich doesn’t want to leave it at grumbling. He wants those affected to share their anger with Federal Minister Habeck – in writing. Because he shouldn’t believe that “the people out there in the country” have long since forgotten what kind of electricity nonsense he recently spread.
At the end of the year, many citizens receive notifications from their electricity providers, in which they say that prices are going up sharply. If you are one of them, please send us a photo of the invoice (you are welcome to make your name and address unrecognizable) and what message and request you have for Economics Minister Habeck to mein-bericht@focus.de. We use some of the letters for further reporting.
Habeck recently complained publicly about how hard his employees have to work: “People get sick. They have burnout, they get tinnitus.” Did he also mean those in the communications department who have to process the so-called citizen mail? It is quite possible that they will soon have a lot to do – with letters from Munich and all over Germany. That’s going to be hard. How can you explain that “no electricity problem” causes big problems in many household budgets?
