Newly released figures from Eurostat have revealed which EU countries had the highest electricity prices in the first half of 2023, with Germany coming in fourth place.
While gas and electricity prices have risen across the EU bloc since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there have been significant discrepancies from country to country.
A year after the war in Ukraine began, Germany was among the states where people were paying the most for their home utilities, specifically 41,3 euros per 100-kilowatt hour of electricity - the fourth highest price in the bloc. Only residents in The Netherlands (44,8 euros per 100 kWh) Belgium (43,5 euros per 100 kWh) and Romania (41,3 per 100 kWh) were paying more in the first half of the year. The average cost in the EU came in at 28,9 euros per 100 kWh.
All that said, the high prices of 2023 actually mark a slump in the table for the federal republic. Before the Russian invasion, Germany had taken the title of the EU country with the most expensive electricity prices consistently, from 2019 to 2021.
This is because gas plants still make up a large part of Germany’s electricity generation and the cost of CO2 emission allowances instituted by the European Trading System (ETS) more than tripled between 2020 and 2022.
While prices in Germany have been consistently high, the cost of electricity in the Netherlands faced a particularly painful spike in the first halves of both 2022 and 2023, during which residents were paying an eye-watering 953,2 percent more for their on such utilities.
Even the two countries which followed in second and third in terms of electricity price rises in the first halves of 2022 and 2023 saw significantly smaller rises in comparison to that of the Netherlands. In Lithuania, prices rose by 87,8 percent and in Romania 77,3 percent.
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