From April, district heating and natural gas customers of Stadtwerke Gießen AG (SWG) will benefit from falling prices. The trigger for the price adjustment is the fall in mineral oil prices in recent months. Due to the oil price link, gas prices follow developments on the oil market with a time lag. "The price reduction clearly shows that the oil price link works in both directions," says Manfred Siekmann, CEO of Stadtwerke Gießen. "It is a particular pleasure for me to be able to pass on the lower procurement costs to our customers as a price advantage."
Natural gas
In the area of gas supply, both the labour prices in the general price of the basic supply and the labour prices for heating gas will fall by 0.46 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) including all taxes. The basic price remains constant. For an average customer with an annual consumption of 3,000 kWh, this means a price reduction of 5.2 %. The customer's annual bill will fall by 13.80 euros. A customer who heats with natural gas and consumes 30,000 kWh per year will pay €138.00 less per year from April - a reduction of 7.35%.
District heating
The falling purchase costs for natural gas also have a direct impact on the price of heat, which is mainly generated from natural gas. This means that SWG will also reduce the prices for district heating on 1 April. The price reduction here is 0.73 cents per kWh, including all taxes, and the annual performance price, which is payable per output provided, will remain constant. This means that customers with an annual consumption of 22,500 kWh (single-family home) will pay 164.25 euros less per year (or 13.69 euros per month). This is a price reduction of 8.92 %.
Price development
At the beginning of the year, SWG's natural gas and district heating customers could already look forward to constant prices. However, behind the constant gross prices was a reduction in the form of a net price reduction - the VAT increase cancelled out SWG's reduction, so that customers subject to VAT still had the same gross prices.
Price trends in competition
The gas price overview published by the Federal Cartel Office at the beginning of the year showed that Stadtwerke Gießen was in the lowest third of suppliers nationwide. This will not change. With the SWG Management Board's price strategy of passing on the reduction in procurement costs in full to customers, SWG will not need to shy away from comparison with other competitors.
Customers receive mail
Over the next few weeks, Stadtwerke Gießen will be writing to its 28,000 gas customers to inform them of the price reduction, which will come into effect on 1 April.
Customers can submit meter readings
SWG's gas and district heating customers do not necessarily have to read their meters on 31 March. This is because the supplier calculates consumption before and after the price increase using characteristic curves. However, anyone wishing to read the meter themselves and inform SWG can do so by 15 April, preferably online at www.stadtwerke-giessen.de or by postcard to Stadtwerke Gießen. Customers who wish to hand in their meter reading at the infoCentre on Marktplatz can do so from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 6 pm and on Saturdays from 9 am to 2 pm. Callers can call the SWG service hotline on 0180 22 11 100 from Monday to Friday from 7 am to 7 pm. However, SWG asks callers for their understanding. Due to the potentially high volume of calls, it is possible that all lines may be busy. If you want to avoid the queue, you should use one of the other options.