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Glossary · Energy industry & energy transition

EEG surcharge (EEG-Umlage)

EEG Surcharge renewable energies financing Feed-in Remuneration market premium electricity price

The EEG surcharge was the financing mechanism of the German Renewable Energy Sources Act. It covered the costs that arose when operators of renewable generation plants had a statutory entitlement to support and the revenues from selling their electricity were not sufficient for that purpose. For every kilowatt hour delivered to final consumers, electricity supply companies paid a fixed amount to the transmission system operators and added it to the electricity price. For the second half of 2022, the surcharge was set by law at 0 ct/kWh. Since 2023, support is no longer paid via the electricity bill but from the federal budget.

The surcharge was not a remuneration but a levy on consumption. It was calculated in cents per kilowatt hour, that is, per quantity of energy consumed. Anyone who purchased electricity paid the rate applicable at the time, unless a privilege or exemption applied. The four transmission system operators had to determine and publish the amount for the following calendar year by 15 October each year. The basis was forecasts of support payments, wholesale electricity prices and consumption subject to the surcharge, as well as a liquidity reserve and the balance of the EEG account.

What the EEG surcharge financed

For a long time, the EEG gave operators of wind, solar, biomass and other renewable plants fixed or sliding support entitlements. In the beginning, the feed-in tariff was the focus: a statutorily fixed amount for each kilowatt hour fed in. For larger plants, the market premium later became decisive. Under direct marketing, operators sell their electricity on the market themselves or via service providers. If the market value is below the applicable value, they additionally receive a premium equal to the difference.

At its core, the surcharge covered the gap between the revenues and the expenditures of the transmission system operators in implementing the EEG. The expenditures consisted mainly of tariffs and premiums. The revenues consisted mainly of the proceeds from selling the remunerated EEG electricity on the exchange. An example: if an older solar plant was entitled to a high fixed tariff but its electricity earned significantly less on the exchange, the difference had to be compensated. These payments did not appear individually in customers' supply contracts. The transmission system operators collected them centrally in the EEG account and passed the remaining gap on to consumption via the surcharge. In technical jargon, this gap is called differential costs.

The surcharge thus linked support, the electricity market and electricity consumption. Plant operators received predictable revenues, and final consumers bore the additional costs. This was not a technical necessity but a political decision: the expansion was to be paid for through the electricity price and not through taxes.

Level and development

In the early years of the EEG, the surcharge was a fraction of a cent per kilowatt hour. With the strong build-out, above all of photovoltaics, which were still expensive at the time, it rose significantly. According to the transmission system operators' publications, it was around 3.59 ct/kWh in 2012, around 5.28 ct/kWh in 2013 and 6.24 ct/kWh in 2014. It reached its peak in 2017 at 6.88 ct/kWh. After that it remained at roughly 6.4 to 6.8 ct/kWh until 2020. In 2021 it was 6.5 ct/kWh; for 2022 it was set at 3.723 ct/kWh. All values are net values; value added tax was added for household customers.

The sharp decline for 2022 had one main reason: wholesale electricity prices had risen sharply. As a result, EEG electricity earned more on the exchange, and the need for compensation fell. Federal subsidies also dampened the surcharge in the last years. From 1 July 2022, the rate was set to zero under § 60 paragraph 1a EEG 2021. For billing covering the whole of 2022, the transmission system operators therefore state an average value of 1.8615 ct/kWh.

Distinction from electricity price, network charges and taxes

The EEG surcharge was only one of several electricity price components. The end-customer price is made up of procurement and sales, network charges, metering charges, electricity tax, concession fee, value added tax and other levies. The EEG surcharge could noticeably influence the price but never explained it on its own.

Nor was it a network charge. Network charges pay for the operation, maintenance and expansion of the electricity grids. The EEG surcharge paid support entitlements for renewable electricity. Both appeared on the same bill but had different causes, responsibilities and incentive effects.

It was not a tax either. It was mandatory for many consumers and in everyday life felt like a state levy. But the money did not flow into the state budget; it flowed via the electricity suppliers to the EEG account of the transmission system operators. This construction played a role in the assessment under state aid law, for the exemptions of energy-intensive companies and for the question of whether electricity customers or the state budget should bear the support.

Why the surcharge could rise even though electricity became cheaper on the exchange

A rising surcharge is often read as proof that renewable energy is becoming ever more expensive. That falls short. Part of the costs did indeed come from older plant vintages with high tariff rates, especially photovoltaics from the time when the technology was still much more expensive. However, the surcharge depended strongly on the wholesale electricity price. If the market value of the electricity fed in falls, the gap between the support entitlement and the market revenue grows under fixed or sliding support models.

In addition there is the merit order effect: wind and solar power have very low variable costs and therefore often depress wholesale prices. Lower exchange prices, however, increased the differential costs and thus the surcharge. For consumers whose procurement prices fell, the two could partly offset each other. Conversely, the high exchange prices in 2021 and 2022 caused the need for compensation to shrink. The surcharge therefore did not simply show the costs of renewable energy. It showed how far the guaranteed support values lay above market values, under the market rules in force at the time.

Distributional effect and exemptions

The surcharge was also controversial because it placed the costs on electricity consumption. Households and many smaller businesses paid it largely in full. Certain electricity-intensive companies in international competition could obtain partial relief through the Special Equalisation Scheme (Besondere Ausgleichsregelung). This was intended to prevent production from relocating abroad because of high electricity costs. However, the more consumption was favoured, the more the remaining consumers had to bear per kilowatt hour.

A fixed surcharge per kilowatt hour hits low-income households relatively harder, because electricity is part of basic needs. At the same time, it makes electricity more expensive compared with heating oil, natural gas or fuels. This contradicts the goal of electrification: a heat pump, an electric car or an electric industrial process is less economical if electricity is burdened with levies while fossil energy sources bear their climate costs only partially. This distorted price signal was also an argument for abolition.

Abolition and current financing

Since 1 July 2022, the EEG surcharge has been zero. Since 1 January 2023, the Energy Financing Act (Energiefinanzierungsgesetz, EnFG) has governed the financing. Under it, the transmission system operators determine the so-called EEG financing requirement in advance each year and publish it in October for the following year. The federal government thereby compensates the difference between the revenues and the expenditures of the transmission system operators. The EEG account and the payment of support to plant operators therefore continue to exist. Payment simply comes from a different source.

This source has changed since 2022. Initially the money came from the Climate and Transformation Fund. With the 2025 federal budget, EEG financing was taken out of the fund and moved into the general federal budget. The amounts are considerable: in 2025, according to the transmission system operators, the federal government transferred around 16.5 billion euros to the EEG account. For 2026, the forecast financing requirement before taking the account balance into account was 16.152 billion euros; for 2027 the grid operators expect 17.524 billion euros. The values for the individual years are forecasts and are continuously adjusted.

The support costs have thus not disappeared; they are simply paid differently. Instead of via the electricity bill, they run through the state budget. This relieves electricity as an energy carrier and facilitates electrification. At the same time, the costs are no longer visible on the individual bill and become part of general budget decisions. The debate today is no longer about cents per kilowatt hour but about billions in the federal budget. Rules such as the suspended support during negative electricity prices are also intended to limit the requirement. Other levies, such as the KWKG surcharge and the offshore grid surcharge, continue to be charged via the electricity price.

What the term makes visible

The EEG surcharge shows that expanding renewable energy requires financing rules, a distribution of risks and investment security. Guaranteed tariffs reduced the risk for investors in the early period. This enabled mass production and significantly falling costs. The history of the surcharge also shows how much the assessment of costs depends on what is counted. Anyone who looks only at the surcharge sees additional costs on the electricity bill. Anyone who looks at the whole electricity market must also include lower exchange prices, avoided fuel imports and lower emissions, as well as grid expansion, flexibility needs and security of supply.

The EEG surcharge must be clearly distinguished from related terms. The feed-in tariff and the market premium describe what a plant can claim. The electricity price is the end-customer price with several components. Network charges pay for the grids. The EEG surcharge was the route by which, until mid-2022, the differential costs of support were distributed among electricity consumers. It remains important for historical price comparisons. It no longer explains today's electricity bills.

Sources

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Edited by eCMS on 11.11.2026 19:42

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