The last period of the year comes with a lot of goodies, Christmas spirit and newly announced energy prices for 2023.
In a nutshell, the four major energy providers in the Netherlands shared the joy of increases with all of us:
| €/kWh | €/m3 | |
| Eneco | 0.70 | 3.00 |
| Greenchoice | 0.82 | 2.55 |
| Essent | 0.82 | 2.98 |
| Vattenfall | 0.84 | 3.22 |
But as any other good government, the Dutch one has a plan: the plan for the next year is to subsidize the energy, paying the difference over €0.40 kWh and €1.45 for the m3 gas. This applies for the first 2,900 kWh and 1,200 m3 gas.
This measure is intended to be temporary, but as inflation, it will probably last a little bit longer. Like a couple of years.
Getting rid of the protection will make a lot of citizens feel the full blown of the increases, and that's generally bad for politicians. So most likely, the threshold will stay in place, with the government paying the difference. And in order to sponsor this socialistic measure, the money will come either from:
- a booming economy, which will erase any deficit in the budget
- increase of taxes (but NL is already heavily taxed)
- government loans from EBC (aka more money printed)
You can take a guess which one will be the most likely solution.
As you might notice from the table above, giving the base prices of around 20 eurocents/kWh and 70 eurocents for a cube of gas, the new prices are roughly 4x more. 4 TIMES MORE. Once the current contracts will reach their year end, some families will find themselves in a funny situation where the difference to be paid will be huge. The next year won't be a funny one for a lot of people.
It's not clear yet how the rest of the industry will be protected from these increases. There is no much room to maneuver here, so most likely the difference will be passed into the final prices of products and services. That means even more increases and pain for the buying power of the Dutch people.
As a reader, keep in mind that the natural gas is seen as a climate change cause, and it was hit by extreme taxation and measures long before the Russian military intervention in Feb 2022. So the price above would have been the regular one here, even with no turbulence. The difference is that now, they can blame Russia for it.
Let's also remember that started with the European Commission who wanted badly to punish Putin for the Ukraine invasion. That was the start of the (even more) rising prices for the natural gas. Now we feel the results of such action.
If the prices will stay at that level, that's to be seen. Next years the inflation will just express itself, since ECB is not capable to fix their own clusterfuck. And more government intervention, and more socialism, and more inflation.
But let's see the bright side of the things: affording less and less energy, the consumption will drop and the planet will be saved! Climate change heroes. Everyone of us. And as a bonus, mister Putin will be punished.
Everything in the name of a greater good.
