According to a forecast by the energy service provider Ista, many rental households have to expect significantly increasing heating costs in the current heating season. Ista cites increased consumption and significantly higher costs for oil and gas as reasons. However, Ista assumes lower costs for district heating.
From September to November, private households’ consumption of heating energy increased by twelve percent, adjusted for weather conditions, compared to the same period last year, the company reported in Berlin. Heat consumption was at least at the same level as before the energy crisis. “The more economical behavior of last winter has not been repeated this year,” it said. People are heating more generously again, explained Ista boss Hagen Lessing, according to the announcement.
Supposed security among consumers
“Consumers are apparently lulled by the supposed security of lower energy prices,” Lessing continued. In fact, the price level for oil and gas this winter is significantly higher overall than last year.
Wholesale prices for heating oil and natural gas have fallen again since their respective peaks last year. Nevertheless, an increase in the costs of natural gas by around 61 percent and for heating oil by around 34 percent must be expected for the current heating period. “There is a real cost trap lurking here for many tenants,” says Lessing.
The increases refer to the average prices determined by Ista for 2022 in bills for 2.7 million apartments of 7.4 cents per kilowatt hour of natural gas and 9.3 cents per kilowatt hour of heating oil. For district heating, however, Ista expects a decline of 24 percent – based on 12.5 cents per kilowatt hour in 2022.
The “Heiz-O-Meter” as a new monitoring tool
In this context, the Ista board chairman referred to a new, publicly accessible monitoring instrument for displaying current heat consumption, the “Heiz-O-Meter”, which was to be presented in Berlin. It is fed with current monthly heating data from around 350,000 households in Germany. The actual consumption of heating energy from the previous month is determined in the middle of each month throughout Germany, in the individual federal states and in the 20 largest cities. “This creates current, representative, weather-adjusted and comparable values,” it said. The company advertised that rental households would be able to better classify their current heating behavior based on general consumption trends in the future.
