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Electricity prices are rising. Niederhelfenschwil is hit particularly hard: electricity will cost three times more next year.
“I did a quick calculation. It’s 1,500 francs more per month for energy use,” says Philipp Krucker, owner of the Adler butcher’s shop in the village of Niederhelfenschwil in the canton of St. Gallen. “Calculated over the year, that’s a big chunk.” The butcher shop relies on electricity. It has machines and cold rooms that use a lot of electricity and cannot be easily shut down. They are necessary for the operation.
The community was unlucky
Electricity will become more expensive for all of the approximately 3,000 residents in the community. Mayor Peter Zuberbühler says that the authorities could not have influenced many things: The electricity supply contracts have to be renewed at the dumbest moment: “They expire at the end of 2022.”
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It is not yet clear whether the meat in the Adler butcher’s shop will become more expensive.
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At the beginning of 2022, the municipality began to orientate itself on the market, solicited, compared and negotiated offers. But: «The mechanisms were completely undermined this year. Due to different framework conditions over which we have no influence. »
Own solar cells are a stroke of luck
Not everyone in Niederhelfenschwil is as badly affected as the Adler butcher shop. If you have your own solar cells on the roof, you can now feed the excess electricity into the grid at a price that is six to eight times higher.
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Anyone who can feed excess electricity into the grid now gets a better price for it.
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For example David Nessensohn, who ordered a photovoltaic system for his carpentry shop last year: “Luckily it came quickly. It’s been running since February. We are independent of electricity and can even feed something into the grid.» He now gets almost 42 centimes per kilowatt hour, before it was 5.5 centimes.
In winter he will probably have to buy some electricity. However, David Nessensohn hopes that the income will be high enough for him to be able to use it to pay for the more expensive electricity.
Whether the community will intervene is still unclear
The municipality of Niederhelfenschwil wants to consider how it could support those affected. In a first step, however, she decided against subsidizing the electricity price. For those who are suffering from the higher prices – such as the Adler butcher shop – we can only hope at the moment that things will get better again in the coming years.