The prices for household energy have increased significantly again this year in January.
After the Energy Price Index (EPI) calculated by the Energy Agency fell by 10.9 percent in December compared to the previous month, household energy became more expensive again by 12.8 percent at the beginning of the year. Year-on-year, household energy prices thus rose by 40.8 percent.
This was mainly due to electricity, natural gas and district heating price increases.
Electricity cost brake takes effect
The price increase in this January was the largest since March 2022. The electricity cost brake would have had an effect, but other price increases overshadowed the price-dampening product.
According to the report, electricity prices at the beginning of this year had risen by 25.9 percent in a monthly comparison and by 17.7 percent in an annual comparison. Also, with the gas, customers had to grasp in January again more deeply into the bag: Prices rose by 15.4 percent compared with December 2022, and gas became more expensive by a whopping 104.0 percent compared with January 2022.
The main reasons were regular contract adjustments by some energy suppliers and increased network charges. From March 1, however, the network fees should fall again; since then, the federal government has taken over 80 percent of the additional costs. Up-to-date, there are again increasingly more favourable offers for the river at the final customer market; an offerer comparison can be worthwhile, so the energy agency.
District heating is more expensive.
District heating also became more expensive at the beginning of the year. Compared with the previous month of December, the price increase was 22.2 percent; in the annual comparison, district heating was 94.3 percent more expensive. The reason for this was the drastic increase in the cost of fuels such as natural gas and biomass. In the case of district heating, however, prices can vary greatly from region to region, so this is an average value.
The prices for wood pellets decreased meanwhile in the monthly comparison by 7.3 percent; in the yearly comparison, they remained a plus by 98.9 percent. Firewood became more expensive in December, around 2,8 percent, compared with January 2022; the prices were around 83,4 percent higher this year.
Fuel
Diesel was also more expensive than premium gasoline in January, but the price gap has narrowed. An average tank filling (50 litres) of premium gasoline cost about 80 euros at the beginning of the year and thus became 10.2 percent more expensive in a year-on-year comparison. Diesel costs around 87 euros for the same tank filling, representing a year-on-year price increase of 23.8 percent. Only heating oil prices fell by 1.2 percent month-on-month, but the year-on-year price was still 49.6 percent higher.
- source: kurier.at/picture:hp
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