Eon has a total of around twelve million electricity and two million gas customers in Germany. Photo: Henning Kaiser/dpa
The wholesale prices for gas and electricity have fallen significantly again. However, energy giant Eon doesn’t believe energy will ever be as cheap as it once was.
Despite announced price reductions for household customers, the energy supplier Eon assumes that wholesale energy prices will remain permanently higher than before the crisis. “I think it is almost impossible that we will return to the prices we had in 2017/18/19 before the pandemic and the Ukraine war in the near future,” said Eon CFO Marc Spieker of the German Press Agency and the financial news agency dpa- AFX. “Secure, sustainable energy comes at a price, and it will stay that way for the time being.”
Last year, wholesale prices for electricity and gas rose extremely, partly as a result of the Ukraine war and the sanctions against Russia. As a result, energy suppliers also raised prices sharply. In the meantime, wholesale prices have fallen significantly again.
Eon plans price cuts
Eon has announced that it will pass on lower prices. On September 1st, Germany’s largest energy supplier wants to reduce the prices for millions of electricity and gas customers in Germany in the basic supply and in special tariffs. Eon wants to reduce other tariffs in the spring. Eon has a total of around twelve million electricity and two million gas customers in Germany.
In the past, the processes for adjusting prices were optimized on an annual basis, said Spieker. “The dynamics of the energy crisis have shown that the ever more rapidly changing framework conditions in the processes must be taken into account even more.” Eon have therefore adjusted the tariffs in several phases. Customers who had recently received a price increase had previously been driving at comparatively low prices for a longer period of time.
The number of customers in Germany is stable overall, said the manager. During the energy crisis, the rate of switching to other providers had fallen dramatically. The willingness to change has revived in the last three or four months. Customers often switched from the basic service to a special contract with Eon. (dpa/dl)