It came as a shock to the young woman. After her gas supplier Gas.de had unilaterally terminated the gas supply, she was automatically and seamlessly absorbed by the local basic and backup supplier Gasag at the beginning of December. The apartment never stayed cold. In the meantime, she has also looked for a cheaper gas supplier. But for the month of December, she received a bill from Gasag that shocked her. While previously paying around 80 euros a month for gas, Gasag now charged 528 euros and 43 cents for the backup supply in December alone. “Unfortunately, that’s the norm at the moment,” says Hasibe Dündar. “It’s almost always about 400 euros to 600 euros for a month.”
Hasibe Dündar is an energy law advisor at the consumer advice center in Berlin. In Tempelhof, she regularly advises customers who suspect excessive energy bills. For a few weeks now, at least every second consultation has been about Gasag. The reason is a so-called basic and replacement supply tariff for new customers, according to which new customers who have slipped into the replacement supply are charged 18.25 to 18.73 cents per kilowatt hour, while existing Gasag customers only pay around eight cents.
Ten times as expensive as a year ago
The company justifies the special condition with the fact that the gas quantities for new customers would have to be procured later at currently very high prices. In fact, gas was ten times more expensive on the spot market at the end of December than it was a year ago. At 212 euros per mega hour, the gas price marked the previous record at the time. It is now around 90 euros.
However, Gasag is not alone in its ingenuity when it comes to the statutory replacement supply. According to the comparison portal Check24, 351 basic suppliers nationwide have introduced new tariffs exclusively for new customers. Compared to existing customers, the prices were increased by an average of 178.3 percent. The fact that Gasag “only” asks for 134 percent more doesn’t make things any better. The Berliner, who sought advice from Hasibe Dündar, got the replacement supply at a price of a good 18 cents per kilowatt hour. Previously, she had paid just under four cents at Gas.de.
In addition, the forced change of supplier comes at an inopportune time, since gas is mainly needed in winter. About 80 percent of the annual requirement is consumed in the winter months, but the costs are sensibly spread evenly over twelve monthly installments. As a result, in December these are not about a twelfth of the annual costs, but actually often 20 to 25 percent. Hence the monthly bill for several hundred euros, which, according to Gasag, can also be paid in installments in any case.
For Hasibe Dündar from the Berlin consumer center, Gasag’s tariff for new customers is still unacceptable. “From my point of view, the tariff is illegal,” says the fully qualified lawyer. The legislator prescribes that new and existing customers must be treated equally in the basic service. In fact, the North Rhine-Westphalia consumer advice center has already announced that it will “use all legal means to combat this disadvantage”. Dündar therefore not only advises its customers to quickly switch to a cheaper provider. The energy law adviser also recommends objecting to the calculation at new customer conditions and the payment “under reserve”.
According to Gasag, a total of almost 21,000 customers have been affected by the new customer clause. The vast majority came after the gas providers Stromio, Gas.de and Grünwelt stopped supplying gas at the beginning of December. According to Gasag spokeswoman Ursula Luchner, more than half of the new customers immediately switched to a cheaper provider. In addition, Gasag offered everyone an “attractive” contract for a period of twelve months, with which one is “currently one of the cheapest offers”.
Further price increases are also not planned. “The prices remain stable during this heating period,” says the company spokeswoman and even hints at a withdrawal of the tariff. The new customer tariff is “temporary”, according to Luchner. “Our goal is to merge the separate tariff for new customers with the basic service tariff for existing customers as soon as possible.”
Last year, 1,703 gas connections were blocked in Berlin
In any case, neither the company nor the consumer advice center expects an increase in the number of gas blocks in the city in the short term. Last year, the gas connection to 1,703 households in Berlin was blocked after unpaid bills. The year before there were 1264 closures, 1670 in 2019.
The energy discounters Stromio, Grünwelt and Gas.de, which had canceled contracts and deliveries for hundreds of thousands of electricity and gas customers in Germany, are now being targeted by the authorities. According to a report by Spiegel, the Federal Network Agency is investigating the suspicion that the companies run by the alleged owner Ömer V. would rather sell gas and electricity to wholesalers for a profit than supply their own end customers. When asked, the Federal Network Agency said that they continuously check whether suppliers are complying with energy law obligations. However, information on individual companies could not be given.