Scholz talks of reliefs as high electricity tariff takes major toll on businesses

Admin I Wednesday, Oct. 02, 2024

 

BERLIN – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to deliver more relief from high electricity prices that have hampered the country’s economy in remarks to business leaders.

Scholz on Wednesday said that energy security should be created to ensure that transmission grid fees do not continue to rise. In the short term, this could be achieved through a federal subsidy to expand the country’s power grid.

Scholz’s remarks were made at a business conference in Berlin organized by the BGA foreign trade association.

A planned subsidy of up to €5.5 billion ($6.1 billion) had initially been planned for this year to finance transmission grid costs and relieve the burden on companies.

But a landmark budget ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court that struck down plans by Scholz’s coalition to use special funds to finance investments blew a massive hole in the budget, and halted the grid subsidies.

Scholz’s government has proposed other ways of reducing the grid fees charged to businesses and households in order to fund the costly expansion of Germany’s electric transmission system.

An amortization account could be used to spread the costs of expanding the electricity grids over greater periods of time.

Scholz noted that a scheme of electricity price compensations already helps offset the burden of high electricity prices on many energy-intensive companies.

However, he added that the aim was to see whether the group of companies receiving relief could be expanded.