EON boss Birnbaum also does not see an early return to the energy prices before the Ukraine war. At that time, the average prices across all tariff groups were between 27 and 28 cents per KWh, 10 cents lower than now, according to Verivox data.
According to Birnbaum, electricity generation from wind and sun is comparatively cheap, but the protection for windless and sunless days through storage or gas power plants causes considerable costs. Another uncertainty factor is the political situation in the Middle East. If there were an escalation here, not only oil prices, but also gas and electricity prices would rise massively, believes the Eon boss.
Although the energy costs and purchasing prices of suppliers in Germany have fallen significantly compared to autumn 2022, the prices are still around twice as high as before the crisis. “The wholesale price for electricity was 50 euros per megawatt hour at the beginning of 2021, today it is still almost 100 euros,” the Eon boss told the Rheinische Post.
(However, the prices on the spot markets and wholesalers in December were already well below 100 euros, it must be added, for a long time between 5 and 50 euros per MWh and at times even negative. Only the political decisions of the traffic light and the current cold wave have pushed prices up again.)
Birnbaum is also critical of the increasing bureaucracy. As an example, he cites the requirement that application documents be made available in paper form and also “summarized as a podcast”.