Der Spiegel: How German Electricity Became A Luxury Item.

[kristopher]

29. Graphing German household energy costs

Here, we see the average cost of gasoline (green area) per month for a three-person household in Germany. On top of that comes heating oil costs (orange), followed by electricity costs without (blue area) the renewables surcharge (the purple area) on top.

Two things are salient. First, monthly expenses for heating oil have more than doubled since 2000, rising from 59 to 125 euros a month, and the monthly power bill has also nearly doubled from €44-€83 per month. In contrast, the cost of gasoline has “only” risen by around 50 percent, from €95-€148 per month.

Second, the main increases for everything took place from 2000 to 2011 – everything, that is, except the renewables surcharge. Power bills have risen from €73-€83 a month in the past two years; in contrast, monthly expenses for heating oil and gasoline actually dropped from 2012 to 2013.

There is thus some reason for concern, but clearly the rising cost of electricity has not been a major problem compared to the heating oil and gasoline. Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that power is still by far the smallest of these three components; German households still spend roughly twice as much on gasoline as they do on power – and roughly 50 percent more on heating oil than electricity.

http://energytransition.de/2013/11/heating-and-fuel-more-expensive-than-power/