Customers get money back
Cartel Office in North Rhine-Westphalia accuses Eon of price usury
2/8/2023 2:08 am
The big energy companies are currently disclosing their balance sheets and announcing billions in profits. However, Eon now has to transfer part of this back to district heating customers in NRW: the antitrust authorities accuse the Essen-based company of excessive prices.
Because of unreasonably high prices, the NRW cartel authority has condemned Eon to repay district heating customers. This is reported by the “Rheinische Post” with reference to the state government in Düsseldorf. “The comparison of the district heating prices for the Erkrath-Hochdahl supply area with comparable supply areas showed for 2017 to 2019 that the prices for Erkrath-Hochdahl were higher than those of the comparable companies pay out reimbursements for years to come,” a spokesman for the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Economic Affairs told the newspaper. “The reimbursements for the years 2017 to 2019 in the Erkrath-Hochdahl supply area total around 164,500 euros.”
The Eon spokesman confirmed the report and emphasized: “There are no nationwide repayment obligations – in fact, we have agreed on the payment with the authority for procedural reasons. In Erkrath we pay a one-off payment of 164,455.15 euros for the years 2017 to 2019 for certain customer groups and in Leverkusen 1772 euros each for 2020 and 2021. He went on to say: “Other tested supplies such as Moers-Kapellen or Wuppertal were priceless and were not objected to by the state antitrust authorities.”
Energy company announces new price increases
Because of the current energy crisis, Eon announced new price increases: “Pricing for us is always lagging behind, which means that we only calculate the prices in the following year, when we have all the indices. That 2022 will be significantly more expensive than 2021, however mainly due to the Ukraine war and the associated gas price development,” said the spokesman, according to the report.
The energy company only presented preliminary balance sheet figures for 2022 in the evening. Thanks to higher income from nuclear energy, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization will be around eight billion euros, Eon announced after the stock exchange closed in Essen. Eon plans to present the final results on March 15th.