Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

The share of fuel costs in total electricity generation is comparatively low, and only the fuel costs for gas power plants have increased. This actually results in price increases of a maximum of 5 cents, or if you calculate it very harshly, 10 cents/kWh. The extremes of 50-75 cents/kWh are completely unfounded.

You have already noticed that the electricity price formation at the EEX, where all utilities purchase their electricity, is not designed for strongly fluctuating electricity generation costs combined with electricity scarcity – or it then swings sharply upwards?

The basis for the utilities (not power plant operators) regarding price increases are the procurement costs. And these have really risen sharply. The market or the greedy power plant operators are not to blame for the price formation, but the Merit Order principle, meaning the situation is politically (with lobbying influence) created.

Regarding the share of fuel costs: From 1 kWh of natural gas you can roughly generate 0.5 kWh of electricity. 1 kWh of natural gas in 2022 currently costs depending on weather and mood 10-20 ct/kWh. This results in fuel costs for electricity generation between 20-40 ct/kWh.
In previous years, the fuel costs for one kWh of electricity from natural gas were somewhere around 3-4 ct/kWh.
How you then get cruelly calculated price increases of 10 ct from this is beyond me. For gas, it is really 20 ct+ just for fuel. Thanks to Merit Order, however, the price is thus at this level for all electricity quantities.

(habe kuerzlich den taeglichen Newsletter von Klein abonniert :D)

Great suggestion, I will do that right away. Thanks for that. As you know, we need follow-up financing from 01.10.23 because the original plan to pay for the property after five years with our life insurances had to be discarded due to the increase in construction costs.

Bin zwar noch nicht so richtig aktiv hier, aber zumindest lese ich wieder alles fleissig mit :)

I’m glad that you are participating here and I’m happy about that. :)

Ganz herzliche vorweihnachtliche Gruesse

Warm pre-Christmas greetings to you too, dear LotteS.

Correction:

As is known, we need a follow-up financing from 01.10.23, as the original plan to pay for the property after five years with our life insurance policies had to be abandoned due to the increase in construction costs.

I'm sorry, I was mistaken; we only need the follow-up financing from 01.10.24, but until then I am dealing with the topic of "forward loan".

The right decision would probably have been to conclude a 3-year forward premium about a year ago. Hindsight is always clearer. What amounts are we talking about? If it’s not too much, I wouldn’t worry about it too much for now.

The right decision would probably have been to conclude a 3-year forward premium agreement about a year ago. You’re always wiser afterward.
What amounts are we talking about? If it’s not too much, I wouldn’t worry too much at first.

About a year ago, I tried to get a forward loan, but my husband wasn’t in agreement. He refers to the past, when after the 10-year fixed term of his loans, he always had an advantage by just “letting it run.” ;-) Neither I nor the bank employee could convince him otherwise.

Well, about 100,000 euros are still outstanding... it’s not really a problem, but it would just be nicer with a low interest rate.

@all: Are there ideas, fantasies, constructions, notions, factual arguments regarding whether interest rates might fall again? What do you think about that, under what conditions would that be possible? What I often hear/read is that interest rates can’t rise too much because then the southern EU countries would become insolvent, but I don’t quite understand this connection either. This also belongs to the topic of construction costs.

On the topic of financing at the moment:

An analysis by the real estate broker Dr. Klein now shows how, for some builders, the calculation still seems to add up: they are saving on repayment.

With an average initial repayment rate of 1.98 percent for first-time and follow-up financing, November saw the lowest value since 2012.

I assume that they will set the construction loan interest rates at around 4%. I don't really see a trend back below 3%.

I hope I am wrong because we want/need to take out a considerable amount again next year :D