“Natural gas suppliers not fully passing falling prices on to consumers”

Even though international wholesale prices for natural gas prices fell in 2016, suppliers did not fully pass this decline on to consumers, according to a study by consultancy EnergyComment, commissioned by the Green parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. “The trend of falling prices over the past two years is pleasing and a start,” said Green politician Bärbel Höhn in a dpa article. She noted that the lower prices had not yet fully benefitted German households, according to the article. However, final prices for consumers depend much more on external costs like grid fees, taxes and levies than on the cost of procuring power itself, said Stefan Kapferer, head of utilities lobby German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), dpa reports.

Read the dpa article in German here and download the study in German here.