The price of electricity and gas is likely to remain high in Europe for the foreseeable future, with one German supplier warning that prices are likely to double in the coming months rather than go down.
Ingbert Liebing, the head of the Association of Municipal Enterprises in Germany, has warned the public that gas and electricity prices are more likely to go up than down in the coming months, with his organisation expecting prices to soon double once again.
Although many nations across the continent have managed to avoid the worst-case scenarios of gas shortages this winter, prices across Europe remain prohibitively high, with the price of both utilities increasing by around 90 per cent in most EU capitals since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Now, despite the fact that wholesale prices for natural gas have actually gone down, it appears that energy bills are only set to rise even further, with Liebing issuing a warning that the huge increase in energy prices is likely here to stay for most Europeans.
“Even in short-term trading, prices are still significantly higher than before the crisis, three and four times higher than in 2020,” the energy boss said in an interview with local publication Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
“Of course, the municipal utilities also want to lower the tariffs and will do so as soon as there is leeway,” he continued. “But I warn against false hopes. According to our estimates, gas and electricity tariffs will probably double in the foreseeable future.”
Liebing is only the latest of many officials to caution that — despite seemingly making it through the winter without major power outages — Europe is not out of its energy crisis just yet, with many nations still struggling to fill the hole left by the absence of gas and oil imports from Russia.
Matters appear to have only been made worse by the continent’s obsession with green energy, with Britain now being forced to implement voluntary rationing measures as green energy sources struggle to power the country over the winter months.
With temperatures having taken a nosedive over the last week, energy companies on the island have resorted to paying parts of their customer base to not use significant amounts of power between 5pm and 6pm on certain days, with the country also turning back on coal-fired power plants as a fallback to cover the gaps left by renewables.
Nevertheless, some countries in the bloc seem adamant about continue marching down the green path, with the German government even planning — incredibly — to turn off all of its remaining nuclear power plants in a few months.
Such a plan has been roundly criticised by many in both Germany and beyond, with even Liebing — an advocate for renewables — saying during Thursday’s interview that the country should consider delaying the phasing out of the plans, which was initially due to occur at the end of last year.
“For years we have been preparing for the new world without nuclear power. And we shouldn’t shake that either,” he said.
“But: In a situation in which the security of supply is coming under massive pressure because of the Ukraine war because Russian gas is no longer coming, it seems to us that it makes sense at least to discuss all options and not to rule them out prematurely,” he went on to say.
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