AK supports plans for grid fees for electricity producers

In the debate about grid fees for electricity suppliers, the Chamber of Labor (AK) supports the government's plans. It is only fair that those who use the grid also pay for it. Currently, producers bear only about 6 percent of the costs, while electricity consumers bear 94 percent. With more cost fairness, the electricity grid would be used more efficiently, reducing the need for expansion, said AK energy expert Joel Tölgyes to APA.

AK Insists on More Cost Fairness in the Electricity Grid

Grid fees would serve to bring cost fairness into the system and achieve desired incentive effects. "For consumers, these have been a topic of strong discussion for a long time: It involves, for example, time-dependent grid fees, which are intended to ensure that the grid is used more when sufficient capacities are available," said Tölgyes.

More performance-dependent fees also go in this direction: They are intended to charge those consumers more who draw a particularly large amount of electricity at once. "For grid expansion, the simultaneous use of the grid is crucial, similar to a road: Expansion occurs when the road is congested because too many cars are on it at the same time," explained the expert.

Grid Fees Ensure More Efficient Grid Usage

In the "old" energy world, it made sense to focus on electricity consumers for grid usage. Today, however, grid usage increasingly originates from production. "This means that in the future, we must place incentives for efficient grid usage more on the producer side to encourage the most efficient grid usage possible. These incentives could, for example, ensure that wind turbines consider the existing grid when choosing a location - that is, they are placed where a well-developed grid already exists. The construction of storage facilities right next to production plants can also be incentivized so that electricity is fed into the grid only when there is no congestion," said Tölgyes.

The Chamber of Labor expert cannot understand the criticism of the government's plans to introduce a grid fee for fed-in electricity and criticizes that producers are mobilizing against it. In a study by Aurora for Oesterreichs Energie, Tölgyes sees methodological inaccuracies in the comparison with other countries. In the end, it is about the question of whether a highly profitable industry should pay appropriate contributions for the infrastructure it uses. "We believe that such participation is urgently necessary," said Tölgyes.

Trouble for Homeowners with PV Systems

Economics Minister Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer (ÖVP) faced the anger of many homeowners who have installed a photovoltaic system on their roof with his draft for a new electricity law (ElWG). After many negative comments on the draft for review, Lower Austria's Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) also declared: "Hands off private photovoltaic systems."

The draft law is currently being revised, with exemptions for very small PV systems being discussed. According to "Standard," a new proposal envisions an exemption for an input power of about 3.68 kilowatts. However, in recent years, significantly larger systems have usually been installed.

It is unclear how high the grid fees per kilowatt-hour (kWh) fed into the grid will actually be, as these are to be determined later by the energy authority E-Control. The electricity industry recently criticized this as a "black box," which creates great uncertainty for investments.

Feed-in Tariffs Below 6 Cents per Kilowatt-hour

Even low grid fees in the single-digit cent range could become a losing proposition for PV system operators. The compensation from the green electricity processing agency OeMAG was only 6 cents or less between March and September this year. Many electricity providers pay less than OeMAG, with Verbund compensating PV electricity in August at only 2.19 cents per kWh, and Energie AG paying only 0.11 cents in June.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.