The German Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) has approved a €100bn legislation to slow down the growth in electricity and gas bills for households and industry. The "price brake" will come into effect for households and small and medium businesses (up to 30 MWh/year) on 1 March 2023 with a retroactive effect for January-February 2023: they will benefit from a price cap on 80% of the energy consumption of the previous year (€40c/kWh for electricity, €12c/kWh for gas and €9.5c/kWh for district heating) and will have to pay market prices for the remaining consumption. Industrial consumers and companies consuming more than 30 MWh/year of electricity will benefit from a price cap on 70% of their historical energy consumption (€13c/kWh for electricity, €7c/kWh for gas and €7.5c/kWh for heat). The package also includes financial support for households with oil or pellet heating and stable transmission network fees. It also plans a levy on exceptional profits made by power generation companies (from lignite, nuclear energy, waste, petroleum and renewable energies above 1 MW), with the possibility to focus on hard coal power generators: 90% of a fixed upper limit on random revenues would be skimmed off through the levy, to finance the price brake.
In Czechia, the government has approved the extension of the existing cap on electricity and gas price from households and small companies to large companies. Prices will be set at CZK5/kWh (€20.6c/kWh) for electricity and CZK2.5/kWh (€10.3c/kWh) for gas, applying to 80% of the highest monthly consumption from the past five years.
In addition, the government of Portugal has added €500m to its existing €3bn support package: €1bn will help companies consuming more than 10,000 m3/year of natural gas, while €2.5bn will help households and smaller companies pay their electricity bills. The additional €500m is expected to cut the electricity bills of households by 80% in 2023 and that of industrial customers by around 35%.
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