News Digest Item
22 Mar 2018

Interest in German green power contracts waning

MDR

Interest in concluding green power contracts is waning in Germany, Ralf Geißler writes on the website of public broadcaster MDR. Power contracts with a ’green tariff‘ that finances renewable power sources were most popular in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, when suppliers experienced “a real boom,” Geißler writes. But according to Lundquist Neubauer of the price comparison website Verivox, many customers have realised “that they finance the energy transition also without a green tariff” through their renewables surcharge. According to Franziska Maul of the municipal utilities of Erfurt, demand remains significant for green contracts, “but the curve has levelled off.” Simone Peter, head of the German Renewable Energy Federation, says that a lack of transparency in the use of the funds generated with green tariffs makes customers reluctant to commit.

Find the article in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet What German households pay for power here.

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