Particularly in the cantons of Bern, Graubünden, Jura, Schaffhausen, Obwalden, Uri and Glarus are affected. Over a Million people can evade the high Tariffs, only by dragging. Very cheap network charges of the inhabitants of the cantons Zurich, Valais, and both Appenzell benefit. The differences are significant: While the households in the Zurich municipalities, which are supplied from the EKZ, pay annually approximately 270 Swiss francs, Zihlschlacht in the Thurgau municipality of sittersdorf up to 686 Swiss francs.

The expensive electricity distribution to justify your rates with the topography and the few connections per line. However, our review shows that it is not alone, it may be that they provide in rural or mountainous regions. There is not however, in Schaffhausen, a lot of mountains, but in the best Canton of Valais and the Canton of Appenzell.

The electricity market authority Elcom explains the differences as follows: “The law leaves open some room. The extent to which a distributor declares its network to be profitable depends in large part by the company and by the owners. Some pursue profit maximization, and see the network as a sort of milch Cow, with others, the public Service idea in the foreground.”

For 2014 increased fees

ten years Ago, the Federal Council is opposed to the high network fees due to a Penalty. However, this discount for the customers ran out after five years at the beginning of 2014, which the Federal Council attached to the large bell. Since then, many households and companies pay back excessive fees.

The Elcom will now oversee the rates with the new regulation. But the expensive electricity distribution try this. Price watchdog Stefan Meierhans feared that the new rules of the electricity supply act “do not provide effective protection against excessive prices”.

In the autumn of 2008, there was a wave of protest across the country. It was directed against the power distributor. In 2009, the network should be increased to rates of 10 to 25 percent, depending on the provider and the municipality. For some customers this would mean a mark-up to several tens of thousands of francs, without the electricity providers have invested a lot more. Business associations and consumer requested a correction.

On 5. December 2008, had the Federal Council a discount on electricity fees “of half a billion Swiss francs per year,” a sum of about 4.5 billion. This is the planned premiums reduced by about 40 percent. “Many network operators have written down their network in the past, much faster than would have been economically necessary. Through this appreciation, to the extent legally permissible, the maximum value of this operator could achieve additional gains,” explained the Federal Council.

“Lost” books

In some cases, it was not cheating. The then energy Minister Moritz Leuenberger said in the “Neue Luzerner Zeitung”: “for Those electricity producers who have not, after ten years, your books, it has been permitted by law to charge, exceptionally, the value of the network synthetically (artificially). Well, o miracle, have lost many of the producers of your books.”

However, the electricity market Supervisory Elcom could not sleep: “she has recounted and noted that the current distribution is calculated as 20 percent too much for the network,” said Leuenberger. The Federal Council decreed a penalty deduction of 20 per cent on the synthetically calculated in the fixed assets of the power distributor.

So the appreciation has not made profits, but from the world, they were suppressed only temporarily, because of the prescribed discount expired after five years, i.e. by 2014. The Federal Council has attached this to the large bell. He concealed the loss, and sold the Whole as the introduction of a new “market and fairer calculation of” return on Capital. The Result? “The sum of all network operators, the expected network usage charges will rise by 0.5 billion to 4.9 billion Swiss francs,” wrote the Elcom in the annual report 2013.

The bakers making before

the numbers Since then, companies and consumers hundreds of millions of francs from the Revaluation of assets. And today, as the competent Federal office of energy (sfoe) confirms this: “The former upgrades for existing networks to a certain degree even today in the electricity network charges, and until such time as the calculated result of depreciation of the investment value is zero.”

Nevertheless, there are expensive power distributor, claiming that they had never achieved from the Revaluation of assets and network costs a second Time. The network boss of a large provider explained, the Situation was that of a Baker’s comparable. This buys a furnace, sold bread at a price that reflects the value of the plant, and reduces the oven’s value in its balance sheet as quickly as possible. The Advantage Of This? Thus, the taxable profit decreases for the company. The bread price remains the same. The functioning of the furnace has reached the value zero, will not sell the bakery, the bread is cheaper, says the Manager. The Same would have done a lot of power distribution up to 2008.

With the new power supply law, the Confederation allowed the power distribution in 2009 that you loose the in the books of value, but the functioning of the systems to re-evaluate and may make. Thus, the network increased fees on the paper.

What the Manager mentioned: The bakers face tough competition. A customer can back at any time to buy the competition. This choice power customers don’t have. Also you can stay with the electricity price liberalisation in the power tariffs of the local electricity distributor delivered.

The power distribution are not tired to emphasize that its network tariffs from the Elcom approved. In practice, this works like this: The current distribution to report their electricity tariffs once a year to Bern. If these do not appear as unusually high, does not interfere with the Elcom. “We are active only in case of abnormalities,” said the authority. You could only check a few cases per year, in-depth. “Given the Size of the technical Secretariat, not all of the 650 network operators can be annually controlled in detail,” said a spokesman. Specifically, the Elcom has 12 checkers.

fear of transparency

Little checkers, Supervised much: in Order to solve this Problem, operates Elcom, the comparison of regulation, also known as Sunshine regulation. The Federal Council wants to expand this regulation with the Revision of the electricity supply act. Currently the consultation process is running. Each power distribution to compare values in two, three years, with the related average provider would be in the mountains, in the cities with each other and in the middle of the country compared with each other. The Tariff of the distributor is significantly higher than the comparison group, he comes under suspicion, to collect excessive network charges.

Prior to such transparency, it is grayed out learning the expensive distributors. So you can do a lot to effective regulation, such as publicly available documents of Elcom. With dozens of inputs, they call for adjustments, the average values appear in their comparison group as high as possible and your own rates, on average. Not for nothing is the Federal Price watchdog Stefan meierhans warns that you will put in front of ready-made facts. “I fear that the proposed statutory provisions of the electricity supply act do not provide effective protection against excessive prices,” he warned on 14. December.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 28.12.2018, 07:28 PM