Lomborg: Electricity prices for German households have increased 61% since 2000 – renewables blamed

Watts Up With That? ^ | January 23, 2013 | Anthony Watts

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Pursuant to my earlier story today about the article in Spiegel, Bjørn Lomborg writes on his Facebook page:

Real German electricity prices for households have increased 61% since 2000. One quarter of household costs now stems directly from renewable energy. Also, the increase is *not* because of increasing production costs (which have actually slightly declined since 1978).

The increase is due to dramatically increasing taxes, most noticeably from the Renewable Energy Act (EEG). In 2013 the EEG will increase 50% to 6.28 euro-cent (5.28 cents plus 19% VAT). 

In June 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel famously promised to keep EEG prices stable, but this promise has now clearly been broken. The German household will pay 24% of its electricity bill to renewables.

Perhaps this is why more people are stealing wood from German forests (http://bit.ly/VMllfs) and likely why up to 800,000 people can’t pay their electricity bills (http://bit.ly/XcK7nv). Some estimates show costs could escalate to €300 billion by 2030 (http://bit.ly/Qab1Hr).

Notice, that industry still pays much less and about the same as it paid in 1978.

Data from OECD (prices http://bit.ly/10IXX5J, with 2012 estimated from first two quarters from IEA, and adjusted with German Consumer Price Index (MEI), http://bit.ly/UkWaj7)

Real German Electricity price for households have increased 61% since 2000

Real German electricity prices for households have increased 61% since 2000. One quarter of household costs now stems directly from renewable energy.

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Maybe this is why Germans are now burning so much wood for home heat, as Donna Laframboise observes.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[hadaclueonce]

But it makes them feel so good!

[rockinqsranch]

Our prices here in So. Cal have increased over the past year considerably, but due to penalizing us for using electricity.

We don’t use anymore electricity than we did 25 years ago, and the comparisons year to year in our invoices from Edison comfirm that, but the prices are outrageous simply due the stepped useage billing penalizing us for using that electricity.

It’s IMO all due the Leftist dilirium of AGW sans any proof positive. We are being penalized for a fixation of a minority.

[AbolishCSEU]

LOVE my two woodstoves (no furnace or electric baseboard)! And I live on a gov’t declared “wetland” so since I’m “not supposed” to make use of 2/3rds of my land, I gladly harvest all the dead trees as a heating source. BWA HA HA HA!

Coming up next: gov’t outlaws wood burning for heat.

[ghost of nixon]

Perhaps this is why more people are stealing wood from German forests

a perfect example of unintended consequences - the wood-smoke from burning induced by higher electricty prices puts more carbon and particulates into the air than the resulting "green energy" takes out.

[Osage Orange]

Coming up next: gov’t outlaws wood burning for heat.

Already been done in many parts of the country..........

[AbolishCSEU]

Yeah I hear California for one. New York can’t be far behind.

[SERKIT]

When we visited Germany last year, many households had anti-nuke-power flags flying as they were shutting down power plants. How’s that workin’ for ya?