The gas suppliers' new expensive trick

When Sonja O. from Mettmann gets the letter from her gas supplier, she knows that she has to do something. Instead of six cents per kilowatt hour, you should pay 26.6 cents from the end of September. The gas bill would quadruple.

Sonja O. knew her way around and found out about the price she would have to pay for the so-called basic supply in her local gas network. Basic service is a tariff that the utility with the most customers in the area must offer to every consumer.

In the past, these tariffs were often very expensive and therefore unattractive, but the rapidly increasing gas prices have meant that the basic supply tariffs are currently the cheapest in many places. The basic supplier would also be much cheaper at Sonja O.: 14 cents per kilowatt hour currently costs a kilowatt hour there – significantly more than in her old contract, but only a good half of the new conditions offered.

The only problem is: Sonja O. does not get the basic supplier tariff – at least not immediately. "Our basic provider currently only offers us the opportunity to switch to the replacement supply," she writes in an email to WELT.

There are many who are currently in the same situation as you, who are trying to switch to basic supply due to the high price increases: the suppliers are trying to push them into the much more expensive alternative supply first.

There, a kilowatt hour would cost significantly more at 42 cents. "We can only switch to the basic service tariff after three months," writes O. "We were told that this is required by law."

Consumer advocates clearly disagree on this point. "In our opinion, every customer who either actively terminates their contract because of a price increase or whose contract is terminated by the supplier can go into the basic supply and does not have to go into the replacement supply," says energy expert Holger Schneidewindt from the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia. The fact that many suppliers handle it differently in practice is also noticed by the consumer advice centers from the corresponding complaints from gas customers.

"The basic supply was always the cash cow of the suppliers, that has now changed," says Schneidewindt. "Many providers are now trying to make the replacement supply the new cash cow."

Because it is a major problem for the energy companies when suddenly an extremely large number of new customers come to the basic supply. The main reason why the prices in these tariffs are even lower than in many special tariffs is because the suppliers had bought gas for this customer base in the long term in the basic supply – at the then still cheap prices.

When, after the collapse of some low-cost providers in the electricity and gas market, thousands of customers suddenly ended up in the basic supply tariffs, some suppliers therefore introduced different prices for new and existing customers within the basic supply. But that was a legal gray area.

In the meantime, the legislator has therefore introduced the distinction between basic and substitute care. "It is no longer legally permissible to offer different tariffs for existing and new customers within the basic service," says consumer advocate Schneidewindt. “Instead, some providers are now trying to shift as many customer groups as possible to the alternative supply instead of the basic supply.”

The differences are sometimes significant: Vattenfall, the basic electricity supplier in Berlin, also offers a replacement supply tariff for just under 29 cents per kilowatt hour, which costs more than twice as much: 66.7 cents. "Replacement care and basic care are not identical," says a spokesman.

The replacement supply acts as an "emergency supply" when gas or electricity is consumed that cannot be assigned to a specific "supplier or a specific supply contract", "for example if the previous energy supplier loses the right to use the network".

It is the classic case of bankruptcy of a low-cost provider. "Basic and replacement supply can be fundamentally distinguished as follows: The replacement supply has a 'catch-up function' - it takes effect, for example, whenever a previous supplier stops delivering," says Eon, the company is in Hamburg Gas, for example -Basic service.

"If an electricity or gas supplier has to file for bankruptcy and can no longer supply its customers with energy, the default supplier automatically steps in," says the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). "The affected customers come, unless they switch to another supplier, but in this case for three months in the so-called replacement supply."

Consumers could then switch to another provider at any time, and there is no notice period. "If they don't do this, they will be transferred to the basic supply after the end of the three-month replacement supply," according to the BDEW.

But what about customers who make use of their special right of termination due to a price increase? The consumer advocates are convinced that the local provider must also offer them the basic service. In any case, it is advisable to become active: Anyone who just terminates the existing contract and simply continues to use gas and electricity on the assumption that they will automatically end up in the basic supply can quickly find themselves in the backup supply.

You should therefore definitely actively conclude a basic supply tariff with the local supplier. However, as with Sonja O., there can also be problems with the provider. In such cases, the only way to go is to go to the consumer centers or to a lawyer.