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    Germany Told To Recover Power Cash

Summary

Germany has been told a 2012-13 subsidy to some big industries was illegal and must be forfeited.

by: Mark Smedley

Posted in:

Natural Gas & LNG News, Europe, Competition, News By Country, Germany

Germany Told To Recover Power Cash

The European Commission has told Germany it must recover money from certain large, mostly industrial, electricity consumers in Germany because their exemptions from network charges were "illegal."

The commission said May 28 it has concluded that the exemption from network charges in 2012-2013 for certain German users was against EU state aid rules. 

Between 2011 and 2013, electricity users that had an annual consumption above 10 gigawatt hours and a particularly stable electricity consumption were fully exempted from paying network charges under German law and, the commission calculates, thus avoided paying an estimated €300mn in network charges in 2012. These costs were instead financed by a special levy imposed on other electricity consumers.

The Commission in March 2013 opened an in-depth investigation to determine whether this exemption amounted to state aid, and whether it can be justified under EU rules; it has now decided it cannot be.