Industrial Electricity Price: Impact and Controversy in Saxony

Dresden. A maximum of 164 companies in Saxony would benefit from the so-called industrial electricity price, which Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) is proposing to cushion high energy costs. That goes from the Answer to a small request of the AfD parliamentary group. It states that the number would probably be further reduced as the 164 beneficiaries also include legally separate but economically related companies.

The industrial electricity price is also controversial within the Saxon government coalition. Economics Minister Martin Dulig (SPD) and Energy Minister Wolfram Günther are in favor, Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) against. In view of the number of companies benefiting, the AfD calls for cheaper electricity prices for everyone. Among other things, all eight available nuclear power plants are to be connected to the grid again, as is the case in a message is called.

Chancellor Scholz is skeptical about the industrial electricity price

Economics Minister Robert Habeck has been campaigning for an industrial electricity price for months. His proposal provides that energy-intensive companies such as steel and aluminum manufacturers or the basic chemical industry should benefit from capped electricity prices. The companies must be able to prove that they want to make their production climate-neutral in the future. The electricity should then cost a maximum of six cents per kilowatt hour.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is skeptical about an industrial electricity price. “We cannot afford a debt-financed flash in the pan that will fuel inflation again, or a long-term subsidy of electricity prices with the watering can and will therefore not exist,” he said last week. “That would be economically wrong, fiscally unsound and would certainly create the wrong incentives.”

However, his SPD is pushing. Party leader Lars Klingbeil recently said in the ZDF summer interview about the industrial electricity price: “I’m fighting for it to come.” In the coming week, the SPD parliamentary group wants to decide on its own concept at its closed conference in Wiesbaden. With a price of five cents, this even goes further than Habeck’s for a “transformation electricity price”. (SZ/with dpa)