Introduced during the energy crisis in 2022, Germany's gas storage surcharge (Gasspeicherumlage), has significantly increased energy costs to both households and businesses over approximately the last two and a half years.
Under a new plan set for cabinet approval, the federal government will take over the €3.4 billion annual expense associated with filling gas storage facilities, meaning that companies and consumers will no longer pay the surcharge directly.
How much will you save?
For a typical four-person household, the move should translate into savings of between €30 and €60 per year, depending on gas consumption levels, according to media reports.
Individual or two-person households can expect some, if smaller, savings on their gas bills.
For larger industrial customers, the surcharge had accounted for about 5 percent of their gas bills.
Household electricity taxes remain
The abolition of the gas storage levy is part of a push by the federal government to curb energy prices for both households and businesses. However, some other key promises along those lines have already been scrapped.
Despite previous commitments made in the black-red coalition agreement - between the conservative Christian Union parties (CDU/CSU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) - a cut to the electricity tax for all consumers has been scrapped.
Instead, the government has limited a reduction in the electricity tax to the manufacturing sector, starting in 2026.
Within parliament, however, members from both governing parties continue to advocate for a broader electricity tax reduction.
Sepp Müller, deputy leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, told Funke reporters that realizing the necessary savings in a federal budget should be possible.
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Nina Scheer, energy policy spokesperson for the SPD parliamentary group, echoed these calls: “The coalition agreement still provides for an immediate reduction in electricity tax for everyone to the European minimum level.”
Criticism from environmental campaigners
To finance the off-setting of the gas storage surcharge, the government intends to use funds from the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF), a special government budget primarily earmarked for climate initiatives and modernization efforts.
The decision has sparked criticism, notably from the Green Party, which argues that allocating KTF funds to subsidise the costs of fossil fuel infrastructure effectively undermines Germany's climate policy goals.
"A restructuring of the KTF to promote relief for fossil gas takes the goal of the fund ad absurdum," said Katrin Uhlig, KTF rapporteur for the Greens, according to a report by Correctiv.
Conservatives had agreed to earmark €100 billion for "climate and transformation projects" in order to gain the support of the Greens for a massive €500 billion fund for infrastructure and development that they pushed through parliament earlier this year.
Use of the funds to subsidize gas prices is particularly egregious from a climate perspective. The climate damage of gas is often underestimated. "Natural gas" is primarily methane, which is about 80 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 in the short term.
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