Shock for tenants of a house in Berlin: Your gas bill increases more than sixfold because you are considered a large consumer. A wording in the new Energy Industry Act is to blame.
When the Berlin homeowner Knut Muhsik (58) converted his apartment building in the Pankow district to central heating a few years ago, he thought he was doing something good for his tenants. Now it’s coming for the residents but thick as a stick. The gas bill is expected to rise to just under 30 cents per kilowatt hour. For the whole house with its eight apartments and two small commercial units, Muhsik calculates that around 28,000 euros will then be due per year instead of the previous 4,400 euros. The reason is a passage in the Energy Industry Act that was changed in the summer. Many German gas and electricity customers are currently in a similar situation to Muhsik.
So far, Muhsik and his tenants have benefited from a low tariff from Flensburg’s public utility company. However, the supplier has terminated its national customers because of the horrendous prices that it has to pay on the gas market itself. At the end of November, the Flensburg cheap tariffs will end. Instead, the Berlin GASAG is now responsible for Muhsik.
The local supplier is passing on the full economic pressure resulting from the tense situation since the start of the Ukraine war to new customers. “I knew that my tenants would pay the more expensive basic rate with GASAG after the change,” says Muhsik. Almost 11,000 euros – “that can’t be changed in these times”. But GASAG, he reports, even refused to take him into the basic service. The only option is the so-called “substitute supply”, which is allowed for a maximum of three months after a contract change. Since the amendment of the Energy Industry Act, even higher prices can be charged in this tariff.
Even after the three-month period has expired, GASAG obviously insists on the horror prices. The reason, according to Muhsik: Only “household customers” with a maximum consumption of 10,000 kWh per year are entitled to the cheaper basic supply according to the law. Central heating operated by the landlord automatically catapults a connection into the league of commercial consumers.
In response to a request from FOCUS, GASAG stated that they were only implementing the currently valid law. Electricity and gas customers from other suppliers are also affected, according to the homeowners’ association Haus
Thomas Engelke from the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations VZBV demands: “The legal definition of household customers must be adjusted so that tenants whose residential buildings are heated with central gas heating can also benefit from the basic supply.”
Knut Muhsik is at a loss for the time being. “Other providers probably don’t have cheaper tariffs either,” he says. He needs help from politicians. However, the “Gas and Heat Expert Commission”, which had submitted proposals for the gas price brake on behalf of the government, has already made it clear that only part of the increased prices should be borne by the state. It will definitely be expensive for Muhsik’s tenants.
