In view of the currently rapidly increasing energy prices, concerns about cold offices and apartments are not the only growing concern in Germany. The issue of electricity is also putting people under increasing pressure – especially medium-sized companies. This is shown not least by a case from Osnabrück. In the Lower Saxony city, the municipal utilities have terminated the contracts of over 1000 companies. A problem that now poses existential problems for many of the entrepreneurs, because: They were not offered any follow-up contracts. This now poses an enormous challenge, even for supermarkets.
Specifically, it is about five Edeka branches, whose operator Mechthild Möllenkamp reports to the “Wirtschaftswoche” about their emergency situation. She is also affected by the flood of layoffs in Osnabrück, her markets are currently without electricity in the new year. The contract expired at the turn of the year anyway. But in contrast to the 24 years before, this time there was no new offer for a follow-up contract. “The municipal utilities didn’t offer anything, that’s the big disappointment for me,” she is quoted as saying by the industry magazine.
Stadtwerke Osnabrück: It has become impossible to calculate prices
If the boss does not find a new provider, she would slip into the basic service offered by the municipal utility. This is possible for three months – but at a price of up to 80 cents per kilowatt hour. A dilemma for Möllenkamp, which in the worst case assumes more than one million euros in additional costs for its five Edeka branches. She makes it clear: “We can’t just shut down for two months, especially not without electricity, because then everything in our freezers and cold stores will rot.”
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Stadtwerke Osnabrück confirm to the industry magazine that a “smaller four-digit number” of business customers are affected by the terminations. The reason for this is the currently strongly fluctuating prices, which make it impossible to offer new contracts. “The calculability of prices for contracts related to a key date has become de facto impossible,” says a spokesman.
Do Edeka stores have to close?
The Osnabrück case is just one of many current examples. Many smaller utilities are terminating contracts, but large energy giants such as Eon are also terminating electricity customers. A concrete plant manager from Lintel in East Westphalia complained to the “Wirtschaftswoche” about offers whose prices were 20 times higher than the current ones. “You can get scared and anxious,” he is quoted as saying. An ice rink in Ludwigshafen has to close because a new electricity contract will cost up to 80,000 euros instead of the 10,000 euros previously due. The operator of another Edeka store in Stadthagen, Lower Saxony, expects an electricity bill of half a million euros in the future – instead of the previous 74,000 euros.
Natural gas price explodes: family should now pay 1515 euros per month instead of 143
Instead of 143 euros, homeowners from Brandenburg should pay a discount of 1515 euros for natural gas from November – monthly. This makes heating and hot water unaffordable.
Möllenkamp can probably avert the closure of her five Edeka stores, she has found a new supplier. In the future, you will have to adjust to a base price that is five times higher. But she is probably better off than a colleague who runs an Edeka market in Emsland. In a recent phone call, he tearfully expressed his greatest concern that he would no longer be able to supply himself with energy. For the Osnabrück entrepreneur it is also clear: “The price increases are in an area that we cannot finance.”
