Household oil and gas prices down in Germany ahead of heating season – Verivox
Clean Energy Wire
Heating with gas and oil could be cheaper for German households in this year’s heating season compared to the previous winter, said price comparison website Verivox. In September, the average gas price in Germany was six percent lower than in the previous year, while heating oil prices were down 23 percent. Compared to the height of the energy crisis, gas prices were down around 47 percent, Verivox's energy expert Thorsten Storck said. "New customers in particular can almost buy gas at pre-crisis prices again," he added.
Decreasing fossil gas deliveries to Germany from Russia even before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and then a complete halt by late summer of that year, caused prices to reach record-highs – both for private consumers, who often still heat their homes with gas, and for industry, which uses the fuel in production. This caused a significant decrease in fossil fuel use - and thus greenhouse gas emissions - to a small extent also because households saved energy and thanks to favourable weather conditions. Even as prices started decreasing throughout 2023, a majority of households said they continued to try to save energy.
It remains to be seen how prices will affect household heating this winter. Prices are set to rise a little from January 2025 as Germany's national carbon pricing for heating with fossil fuels increases to 55 euros per tonne of CO2. For a model household that consumes 20,000 kilowatt hours of gas, the carbon cost would be 327 euros per year, compared to 194 euros in 2024, Verivox wrote. The government introduced the carbon price to incentivise the move to climate-friendly systems in transport and heating, such as heat pumps.
