According to the ministry, around 3,590 applications for reimbursement or advance payments have been received from energy suppliers since the start of the application period in mid-November, 3,212 of which have already been processed. Households and smaller companies should benefit from the emergency aid. They do not have to do anything for this, an application is not necessary. The suppliers regulate the relief directly with the state.
The December emergency aid is the first stage of the gas price brake; this is expected to take effect in March and retrospectively from January 1st. The emergency aid will benefit private households, smaller companies with an annual consumption of up to 1.5 million kilowatt hours, associations and other private and public institutions.
The federal government commissioned the auditing company PricewaterhouseCoopers to receive and examine the reimbursement applications from the suppliers. Payments are made via the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) and the house banks of the utility companies. Applications can be submitted until the end of February.
In view of falling prices, the Grimm economy warned of a gas shortage due to a renewed increase in consumption. She thinks it is “easy to imagine” that the industry in particular will consume significantly more gas again because of the fall in wholesale prices, she told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. “That would be dangerous in the current situation.”
“Until next winter, it must be a top priority to keep a buffer in order to be able to react to a more tense supply situation,” said the energy expert, who is a member of the Advisory Council. Under certain circumstances, the federal government must set incentives so that gas is saved further, she demanded.
The economy also referred to the increasing demand from China due to the end of the corona lockdown there. This is one of the reasons why the coming winter will “definitely be challenging”. Grimm predicted that there would only be sufficient capacity for importing liquid gas from next year to ease the situation. The prices would, however, even then “level off at a higher level than before the crisis”.
pw/cp
