[ad_1]
An exclusive assessment for t-online shows in which cities electricity costs more and where you can save a lot by switching providers.
Germans can be really happy: electricity prices have fallen by an average of two percent since the beginning of the year. But that doesn’t necessarily make it cheaper for customers. Anyone who gets their electricity from the traditional local basic supplier even has to pay an average of four percent more than at the beginning of the year.
So it can be much more helpful to change basic care. The experts at the comparison portal Verivox have examined the cities where you can save the most. The results of the assessment of the 100 largest German cities are exclusively available for t-online. The big change ranking can be found below.
Primary care:
As a basic service customer, you normally pay high prices, but you have the advantage of being able to terminate your contract at any time two weeks in advance. The alternative is a special contract. As a so-called special customer, the power supply generally costs less, but is also subject to your contract for up to 24 months.
Changing your electricity supplier is more beneficial in Berlin
One of the most important results of the study: if a family of three to four people with an annual consumption of 4,000 kilowatt hours switches for the first time from basic supply to another electricity tariff, an average of 460 euros per year will be saved according to the calculations. Depending on where you live, the savings can be significantly greater.
Nowadays, a change of supplier is worthwhile in Berlin. If you leave the basic service there, you can save 566 euros a year with a consumer-friendly rate, more than anywhere else in Germany. The savings correspond to almost 40 percent of the price in the basic supply.
But you can also get decent sums of money in Pforzheim (563 euros), Ludwigsburg (560 euros) and Fürth (552 euros). The savings in Flensburg are comparatively small. In the extreme north of Germany, a change still brings you 274 euros.
Where electricity is more expensive and cheaper
In addition to the potential for savings, the analysis also provides information on where electricity is generally more expensive. Stuttgart and Esslingen are at the top in the ranking of cities. A family of three to four people pays 1,436 euros a year for 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity in the basic supply. Therefore, the savings potential is almost as high as in Fürth: Stuttgart could save 547 euros when switching providers and 501 euros in Esslingen.
Electricity is also above average in Paderborn and Ludwigshafen (1,433 euros each), as well as in Berlin and Heidelberg (1,428 euros each). On the other hand, it is especially cheap for Hamm customers in North Rhine-Westphalia. The basic service there costs 1,176 euros a year. They are followed by Düsseldorf (1,202 euros), Freiburg (1,209 euros) and Bremerhaven (1,219 euros).
About the method:
For the assessment, Verivox determined the basic supply rates and the cheapest consumer rates for the 100 largest cities in Germany and compared them to the cheapest local supplier. Rates without prepayment, deposit or kilowatt-hour packages, which last for a maximum of one year, can be canceled in up to six weeks, offer a price guarantee, and whose highly satisfied customers are considered consumer-friendly. All prices were calculated with 19 percent VAT.
The main reason why prices differ so much is that network costs vary in different cities. This is due to the fact that power lines must be used and maintained and that meters are provided and read by suppliers.
“Regardless of which city consumers live in, basic power is the most expensive way to get electricity,” says Thorsten Storck, Verivox energy expert. “So it is always worth switching providers. In just a few minutes you can save several hundred euros a year.”
Very few Germans change their electricity supplier
In Germany, only ten percent of households change their electricity supplier each year. According to Verivox, around two-thirds of households still get their electricity from their traditional regional core provider, although everyone can choose from 172 providers on average.
In the future, consumer advocates fear, it will be more difficult for customers to switch providers. The reason: According to information from the “NDR” and the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, the credit bureaus Schufa and Crifbürgel are planning special databases in which the contractual data of electricity and gas customers from the entire sector will be stored.
The database would be a “devastating sign”
On the Schufa side, it is said that the dataset is not intended to locate frequent changers and prevent them from switching providers. However, consumer advocates consider these databases a devastating sign.
“If you have information about previous contract periods, you can deduce from it what consumers are likely to do in the future,” said Marie Barz, an energy expert at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, in an interview with t-online. . “If relevant data can be obtained, we assume that energy providers will use it as well.”
Are they more likely to reject frequent changers?
According to Barz, consumer advice centers are already experiencing time and again that customers are rejected by a new provider despite a good credit rating. This is also true for those who change frequently. However, consumer advice centers only assess customer complaints qualitatively, so it is not possible to get precise information on the frequency. Energy providers do not have to give any reason why they turn away customers.
“If the plans are implemented in this way, those who want or have to keep their monthly electricity costs as low as possible by switching providers will be punished,” Verivox spokesman Lundquist Neubauer said, criticizing the project from credit bureaus. The plans are not only questionable for data protection reasons. They also reduced the pro-consumer liberalization of the electricity market to absurdity.
