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02. 02. 12. - 18:00

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02. 02. 12. - 18:00

Electricity prices 'should be lower'

The head of energy sector authority E-Control has claimed Austrians are paying too much for electricity.

Walter Boltz told the Kurier today (Thurs) that prices "should be 10 to 15 per cent lower". He said every Austrian household should pay between 20 and 25 Euros less a year if providers considered price developments on the international energy products trade since 2008.

Boltz said that the prices domestic suppliers were paying for electricity had been in decline since 2008. He said the current consumer prices were proof that "competition on the (Austrian) electricity market does not function as it should".

The E-Control chief’s criticism comes shortly after the Federal Labour Chamber (AK) revealed plans to take domestic energy sector firms to court over their consumer prices. AK announced it found that some of Austria’s leading electricity and gas providers failed to pass price decreases on to their clients. AK made clear it could imagine launching lawsuits against some electricity and gas suppliers if they kept refusing to change their pricing policies.

AK said Salzburg AG introduced an electricity price hike of 2.4 per cent since the beginning of 2011 despite a 10 per cent price decline in global trading. Eisenstadt-based BEWAG jacked up its consumer prices by 3.3 per cent, according to AK. The chamber also said that Carinthia’s KELAG introduced a price hike of 8.5 per cent.

Energy products and services played an important part in general price developments in Austria last year. The country registered a 3.3 per cent inflation rate. Economists expect the figure to inch back by more than one percentage point this year due to the weak European economy.

E-Control research shows that fewer than two per cent of Austrians are changing their electricity providers each year. "No more than 1.7 per cent of households are changing their electricity providers each year despite the liberalisation of the sector (in 2001)," Boltz explained.

The head of the energy sector watchdog added that only 0.6 per cent of citizens who heated their homes with gas did so a year. He stressed that a switch of suppliers was an uncomplicated matter linked to no significant additional costs. Boltz explained that the new provider of electricity or gas would normally take care of most of the necessary steps.

Meanwhile, the executive board of Austria’s leading electricity provider made first place in a salary chart created by the Audit Office (RH). RH experts – who criticised a lack of transparency concerning the wages of managers of companies close to the state – said Verbund AG bosses earned 842,000 Euros per capita in 2010.

The executive board of postal services provider Post AG came second with a per capita salary of 670,000 Euros. RH stressed that Post AG’s top tier managers’ incomes were 19.6 per cent higher in 2010 than in 2007 while staff’s average wages rose by just 10.4 per cent.

Austrian Times

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