The European Commission ordered Germany to recover from large consumers millions of euros, due to discount on the cost of electricity. The reason for the provision is that, according to the European Commission, the exceptions made to these consumers in 2012-2013 are in breach of the European standards.

“All electricity consumers have to pay to the electricity grid operators for the services they use. The total exclusion of some large consumers from such charges is an unfair advantage and increases the financial burden on other electricity consumers”, said the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager. “That is why Germany now has to recover the unpaid amounts for the electricity transmission from these consumers”, added she.

Between 2011 and 2013, German consumers with annual energy consumption of over 10 gigawatt hours and a steady consumption level were eligible to be exempted from the electricity transmission levy, which in total amounted to 300 million EUR (350 million USD) in 2012.

The costs were covered by an end-user charge, which in practice is the use of state funds to make an exception for large consumers.

There is no objective justification under the EU State aid rules to completely exclude energy users from the network transmission charge, even if they have a stable energy consumption.

The solution is in response to complaints from consumer associations, energy companies and German citizens.